


There's Something In The Water

by Kemmasandi



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Governments Doing Things They Shouldn't, Implied/Referenced Torture, Medical Procedures, Multi, Slavery, Worldbuilding, tags to be added as they become relevant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-13 04:06:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 77,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11751663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kemmasandi/pseuds/Kemmasandi
Summary: The New World at its worst is an inhospitable and terrible place, but even within the jaws of Hell can be found friendships worth fighting for.A corpse is found on a desolate winter island bearing the marks of torture. Years later, an amnesiac washes up on the shores of an island in Whitebeard's territory. Rescued and given a name, Loki must discover who and what she is - andwas- amid the foreshocks of an event that will change the world forever: the crowning of the new Pirate King.





	1. far from the sun

**PROLOGUE**

_\- far from the sun -_

A frozen wind blew steadily across the island. The sky was white, and so was the earth, rocky ground covered with a heavy blanket of fresh snow. Sea fog, advancing slowly off the ocean, blurred the horizon, making it impossible to tell where the ground left off and the clouds began.

The island had no name; had never had any inhabitants to bother with giving it one. It was a mere scrap of too-cold land in the vastness of the ocean, far off the trade routes of the rare merchants who ventured this close to the Calm Belt.

Still, the island was not a wasteland. Here and there, tufts of spring grass poked through the crust of snow, in the lee of rocks and the few hardy shrubs that grew in what little fertile soil they could find. And animals lived here: all but the newest drifts were marked with the prints of hares, snowfoxes, lemmings. It was too small for the deer and oxen which populated the island's larger neighbours, but for the smaller beasts, it was a private haven.

Most of the time, at least.

Raucous barking split the air even before Daegal's dinghy ground ashore. The dogs weighing down the bow of the little boat scrambled around and over each other, eyes wide and tongues lolling out in their eagerness to begin the day's work.

Safe in the stern, Daegal watched their antics out the corner of his eye. He'd landed the dinghy on this tiny, isolated beach countless times before, so often he could have done it in his sleep. And each and every time, the dogs went mad with anticipation.

Daegal was a trapper, eking out a living by going from island to island, collecting skins, meat and anything else that was even slightly usable from the local wildlife. The dogs were his trackers, bodyguards, company - and at times like these, his on-call entertainment.

Chuckling softly, he guided the dinghy onwards through the icy wavelets. 

The tip of Daegal's oar struck the gravel bottom of the beach. Almost immediately, the hull ground to a halt. The dogs felt the gentle impact through the frame of the boat, and all four stopped dead, blue eyes turned expectantly to Daegal.

Grinning, the trapper reached out to untie the knot that kept the pack's leashes fixed to the boat. "There ya go, you pack o' mongrels. Go find me a nice fat ptarmigan for breakfast."

The pack leader immediately leapt overboard, landing in the surf with a mighty splash. The dinghy rocked; Daegal's gloved fingers fumbled with the knot, and the rest of the pack flowed after, splashing through the shallows and up onto the beach like one unified animal.

Daegal scrambled out of the dinghy with human awkwardness. The water was close to frozen, slush floating on the surface. He dragged the dinghy ashore, well past the high-tide mark. Wiping the slush from his gloves, he checked to make sure the insides of his thigh-high boots were still dry as well. Daegal had a reputation for being over-careful, but in these islands, the cold could maim and kill.

That done, he stood, gazing out along the beach. The dogs waited quietly at the far end, at the foot of a set of granite bluffs that rose up to a point twenty metres or so above the ocean. Grey sky, grey stone, grey sea, white snow. The lonely cries of seabirds floated out of the encroaching fog.

Trudging closer to the looming bluffs, Daegal reached inside the collar of his jacket and withdrew the dog whistle that hung on a cord around his neck. He put it to his lips, and blew one short, sharp blast. The dogs ears' pricked up, and they gazed attentively at the trapper, waiting to be given their signal.

"Away with yas!" he called out, gesturing with both arms to the narrow goat track that led around the end of the bluffs. The sound bounced off the cliffs, echoing out across the gentle ocean. As one, the dogs wheeled about and raced up the beach, heading for the track.

Daegal followed, hunching his shoulders deeper into his fur-lined jacket as an icy gust of wind howled across the beach. The track, kept clear by the few woolly goats that wandered the island, was his main hunting ground. Other animals used it; all smaller, and most of them prized by the fur traders Daegal supplied.

The dogs quickly found the first trap, a flax snare set across what Daegal had suspected was a rabbit’s run. There was a hare in it, a thin-looking adolescent with a snowy white pelt. The dogs clustered around, teeth bared in canine grins as Daegal loosened the snare. The hare had been dead for long enough to have frozen stiff, which made stowing it in his game bag a little difficult. He retrieved a clean snare from his pack, setting it close to the ground not far away.

Then he blew on the whistle again, and the dogs ranged off down the track.

The next two snares were empty. One still remained as Daegal had set it, while the other had been dragged well out of place and broken, tufts of wool clinging to the remnants of a noose.

"Guess some dumb goat stepped in it," Daegal commented as the dogs whuffed impatiently around him. They didn't like wasting their time on empty traps – there was nothing interesting to smell. Daegal shook his head, winding the remnants of the snare up into a ball and stuffing them into one of the many pockets on his jacket. He didn’t like empty traps either.

The fourth and fifth traps had been sprung, once on a fat young ermine, and once on a giant snow gecko, which had dropped its tail in the trap and gone free. The sixth held the skeletal remains of another hare, the snow around it bloody and trampled. Daegal cursed the air blue, shaking the dead hare from the broken trap. He checked the island once a week, but every so often the foxes got to his prey first.

Later on in the afternoon, the dogs led Daegal into the lowlands of the island. It was a treacherous swamp during summer, but winter froze the ground solid. Daegal stomped through the snow, the dogs leaping ahead.

He'd only set a couple of traps here, as the animals he was after tended to stay out of the lowlands. But as they emerged from the frozen marsh, they began to see evidence of something unusual moving through the landscape.

Here and there, something big – bigger than the goats – had lumbered through the snow, carving out a zig-zag path between points where it had paused, leaving big depressions in the snow. There had been one, maybe two snowfalls since. Five days, Daegal guessed.

What on earth had made the tracks? At times they looked almost human – walking along on two legs, one dragging behind as though broken, causing the other to take short, staggered steps. At others, it looked as though the creature had dropped to his hands and knees and crawled.

The dogs clustered for a moment around a spot several yards ahead, lowering their heads and sniffing at something beneath the snow. Then they moved off with slow purpose, noses and tails low to the ground. Daegal frowned as he clumped through the snow after them.

They led him through the lowlands for a mile or more. Towards the end, spots of frozen blood began to show through the fresh snow, revealed by the dogs' pawprints. Forebodings lined the pit of Daegal’s stomach.

The dogs followed the trail past a rocky outcrop, skirting the edge of a frozen lake. In the middle of the field beyond, a dark figure sprawled, unmoving.

The dogs sprinted the rest of the way, barking at the top of their lungs. A family of foxes which had gathered around the figure scattered. The dogs surged forward, baying madly. Daegal grabbed the whistle and gave several long bursts. His dogs turned, slinking back to him.

Daegal inched closer to the figure, flanked by his dogs. Wind whistled across the island, and dark spots began to appear in the snow around the dead man.

This was murder, Daegal decided. Not an uncommon occurrence in the New World.

Covering his mouth with one hand, the trapper gingerly swept the snow from the man’s arms. The corpse wore a ripped and torn sheepskin jacket, the fleece turned inside to keep its wearer warm. Black blood soaked through rips in the fleece, long since frozen solid.

The man had been blonde, with high cheekbones and a scraggly moustache. His sightless eyes were bright blue, and heavily slanted. This was a Bear Islander, a fellow countryman.

Daegal gently closed the man's eyes, nausea spinning in his belly. The body bore signs of confinement – dark bruises, new scars around the neck and wrists. The winter jacket was missing an arm. The limb it exposed to the elements was badly broken, and two fingers ended in stumps. The remaining fingers had had their nails torn off. Daegal checked the other arm. Again he found fingers missing nails. Whoever the poor sod was, he’d been tortured and dropped on the island to die. Daegal wondered if the cold or the blood loss had got him first.

He'd have to report this to the sheriff back on Goose Island. More than likely it was pirate doings. There would be no justice for the dead man, but maybe a family could have the body to bury.

Pushing himself to his feet, Daegal heaved a sigh. "Better get back to work," he told the dogs, taking hold of his whistle once again. "Got a couple of traps left."

The dogs whuffed softly. Daegal trudged away from the corpse, though turning his back on it made the hairs on his neck prickle, and blew his whistle.

The dead man would have to wait. For now, Daegal and his dogs had a living to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I first started this story seven years ago next month. It's been a few years since I've been in the One Piece fandom, and Life Happened while I was away, but I've recently caught up on the manga and have been reminded why I loved the world of One Piece so much. On the other hand, this fic has been needing reworking for a very long time. What better time to give it an update? :D
> 
> The old version is still available on my old fanfiction.net account, under the same pen name. I no longer use ffnet, so that version will not be being updated. I'll probably take it down at some point.


	2. on these shadowfeet

 

_\- on these shadowfeet -_

### ...

I woke up slowly, cautiously.

The sound of the world came back to me first. I floated, bodiless, in a black mist halfway in and out of my own mind. At first there was only a roar, the rhythmic thumping of my own blood through my ears. Then, sounds from the outside, a shriek and whisper of wordless voices all around me.

Gradually, words filtered through the tumult. Senseless at first, they resolved into intelligible sentences, underlaid with the sounds of thousands of people in the distance, a muted roar.

"-looks fine," a woman said. "I don't believe this was a mugging."

"She's very dirty," said someone else, disapproving. "A beggar, likely."

She.

Me?

Tactile sensation returned in a rush. My mouth was full of sand and grit, my eyelids gummed together. My whole body ached. I counted four limbs: two arms, two legs, which seemed about right. One arm was pinned beneath me, gravel on a rough-cobbled street digging into my bare skin. Wicked heat beat down on me with a hammer's force.

I groaned, trying to spit out the grit.

"Ah -- awake, are you?" I felt someone kneel by my shoulder, the fabric of a draping skirt brushing my skin. "Are you hurt at all?"

It was a woman's voice, smooth and cleanly-spoken. I cracked open my eyes, and saw nothing at first -- the light was too bright. Then my eyes adjusted. A dark spot hovering above my head resolved into a face. Was it the woman who had spoken? She wore a brightly-coloured length of fabric around her head and shoulders, perhaps as protection from the same sun that blinded me. Her face and eyes were dark, her neat brows drawn together. Even frowning, she was elegant.

A voice spoke up from somewhere near my elbow, high and piping. "Wow, look at her eyes! I've never seen anyone with blue eyes before!"

"That's because you've never gone down to the Port," said another voice, scarcely deeper. "Lots of sailors have blue eyes. Hey, Mama, maybe she's a sailor."

"I'm not sure about that," said the first woman. "Her clothes are terrible, even for the lowest merchant sailors. Can you understand me?" she added, gazing sharply down into my eyes..

The words took a while to sink through the distance between my ears and my brain. There was another, older woman standing behind her, somewhat sour-faced. A string of brightly-coloured scraps of cloth crossed the street above her head, behind that a mud-brick building rising several storeys, and, ultimately, a brilliant blue sky.

I tried out my voice for the first time. "Yes."

It came out a weak croak. I licked my lips, spitting more grit into the street.

The younger woman turned to her companion, reaching out a hand. "Pass me the water."

She was given a gourd, which she unsealed and handed to me in turn. I fumbled it, peering into the darkness inside. Over the dust and animal musk in the air, I caught a hint of a clear, sharp tang.

Something took over me then, something desperate and animalistic. I grabbed the gourd with both hands managed to get the opening into my mouth, and upended it, gulping down as much water as I could. Liquid overflowed, dribbling down my chin and over my chest, but it tasted like something magic. I drank and I drank, and when the water ran out I held the bottle to my chest and ran my tongue around the inside of my mouth, searching for the last drops.

"I have never seen anyone drink like that," said the little girl who had made the crack about my eyes. "You're so messy."

The woman by my shoulder laughed. She slid a canvas bag off her shoulder, searched inside it, and drew out a round orange fruit. "Have this."

"That's our dessert!" the other girl objected.

"You can live without dessert, Turaya" said my saviour, proffering the fruit. "This girl, on the other hand, looks quite dehydrated. You and Kiran can share the other one."

I let go of the empty bottle, struggling into a sit. "I don't need it. I'll be fine."

"No, dehydration in this environment can be very dangerous." The woman took my hand and gave me the fruit, closing my fingers around it. It was soft, warm, and somewhat fuzzy. "Eat it. The sugar will help. There's a well up the street that I can take you to, once you have a little more strength."

I looked down at my hand. It was shaking. I decided then that she was probably right.

The fruit was soft and sweet, but not as relieving as the water had been. My stomach tensed, nausea arriving, but after a while the sensation eased. In the middle of the fruit, I found a large stone. Once I had finished, the older woman took the stone, wrapping it in a bit of paper and secreting it in the folds of her robes.

I went to touch her hand, but my arm shook and I missed. "Thank you."

I wasn't sure why I said it, other than a vague sense that it was what was expected. By whom, a part of me wondered -- but that part was quiet as yet, easily ignored.

Both women shook their heads. "It was nothing," said the younger. "To be honest, I just wanted to make sure that you weren't dead."

That made me laugh. Then something in my throat came loose, and I choked and coughed and spat again. When it died down, I squinted through watery eyes up and down the street.

Hm. Less a street than a narrow alley between mud-brick and stone buildings, a corral with bleating goats at one end and a wider road at the other. There was a group of children playing with a ball, more strings of coloured rags hanging above windows. I heard a chicken cluck, and pigeons stalked along the line of flat adobe roofs, cooing softly. The shadow cast by the buildings cut me in half from shoulder to opposing hip. Perhaps I had been lying there for a long time, and only woken when the sun reached me.

That line of thought begged an important question. "Where am I?"

My helpers glanced at each other. "What do you mean?"

I had thought my confusion was obvious, but apparently not. "I don't recognise this place. I have no idea what I am doing here."

"I don't know the exact name of the street," said the older woman, her expression dry, "but this is the Western Quarter of Tusanto City. My daughter-in-law and I do not live here either. I had assumed you were either a vagrant or a mugging victim, given the state of your clothes."

"Oh." I glanced down at myself. Dust and dried mud coated my clothes, a threadbare tunic and a pair of ripped sackcloth shorts.

"Do you live in Tusanto?" the younger woman asked. I shook my head. "Where, then?"

I opened my mouth, and found I could not answer.

She tried another tack. "What is your name?"

Again, I searched for an answer. Nothing came.

"I don't know."

"That's weird," mumbled the little girl to each other. The women shared a look. A moment passed, as if they were holding a silent conversation, and then the elder spoke.

"I think you had better come home with us. I don't want you on the street after curfew."

I gazed mutely at my hands. Impulses in the back of my head argued with one another; whether to get up and follow the two women home or run for my life. (Where would I go, though? What could I do?)

"Who are you?" I asked.

The younger woman smiled. "My name is Lahaiyla, daughter of Tulsa. I am a lawyer of the Republic of Carolinge." She nodded toward her companions. "This is Aya, daughter of Mirzadeja, my husband's mother, and my daughters, Turaya and Kiran. We live elsewhere, but you would not be the first stray we took in. If you would like, we can help you."

I closed my eyes, gazing into the glowing redness behind my eyelids. The sunlight invaded my head, chasing away the remnants of sleep.

The darkness -- now that I missed. The light revealed nothing to me.

I opened my eyes again. Past the calmness which enveloped me, something was trembling.

"I think that would help. Thank you."

Lahaiyla got to her feet, and held out a slim dark hand. After a moment, I realised she was offering me help. I took it, managed a crouch, and unfolded myself, using her as a balance.

Upright, I stood nearly head and shoulders above both women. Lahaiyla gazed up at me, eyes wide, then gave a soft laugh.

"If you don't know where you're from, then I perhaps do." She brushed my hair away from my shoulder, gesturing to my face. "Genetically, at least. The hair and eyes suggest the Turiak Triangle, although on second thought I've heard rumours about the inhabitants of that region that seem ill-fitting. You certainly are not Carolingen -- too blonde!”

"Turiak?" I repeated. "Where's that?"

She sighed gently. "Further up the Grand Line by quite a lot. Do you remember anything? Anything at all, no matter how small?"

I shook my head. A sharp pain shot through my left temple, fading as quickly as it had come. "There are... little silver fish, going in and out of my head. It's hard to think straight."

"We should probably ask a doctor to look at her," observed Aya. "If she has a head injury, she could be hurt in the brain."

Lahaiyla nodded. "We'll take her home, put her in a proper bed to rest."

It should have been annoying, to hear plans being made about me as if I wasn't there. Instead, it was relieving. The prospect of a bed sounded wonderful. The prospect of not having to think about anything to make it happen was even better.

Lahaiyla and her mother-in-law moved off up the alley. After a moment, it struck me that I should follow.

The city they led me through was utterly unfamiliar. I knew without a doubt that I had never been here before. Under my bare feet, the streets were worn cobbles and dry, sandy earth. The people moving past us were mainly dark-skinned and dark-haired. I looked at my own hands. They were very light, with undertones of yellow and pink. Further up my arms, my skin turned red and burnt. It hurt to touch. The hair that kept falling into my face was light gold, and all but glowed in the harsh sunlight.

I noticed I was falling behind, and jogged to catch up. "What is the Turiak Triangle, and what did you mean about ill-fitting rumours?" I asked, reaching Lahaiyla. A clue was a clue, no matter how small.

"A region of the New World, very large, and an ethnic group," Lahaiyla replied. She gave my face a sidelong look, and simplified the explanation. "A group of people that look rather like you, and that share a common ancestry and culture. We don't see many people from Turiak in Carolinge, simply because it is so far away. When they do turn up, they're usually sailors."

"You said Carolinge is this country." I put together the beginnings of a mental map. “What happens here?”

Lahaiyla nodded. "We are a democratic Republic a little east of the G1 Marine base. Our primary exports are grain, fruit, and iron, and we do a roaring trade in textiles going to Mariejois. This city is Tusanto, our capital."

I stared down at the cobbles that passed beneath my feet, feeling myself frown. "I don't know what any of that means.”

She reached up, rested a hand on my shoulder. "That's fine. If your memories don't come back, we can teach you."

I couldn't think of a reply that would express everything I wanted to say, so I simply nodded.

Having a head full of nothing was frightening. They had to come back. What would happen to me if they didn't?

Aya stopped at a contraption by the side of the road. “Here you go, fish-girl.”

I gave the mechanism a close look. There was a spout at one end, and a clear handle at the other. I tried to pump the handle. It refused to move.

Lahaiyla held the water bottle I had emptied under the spout. “It sticks sometimes,” she said helpfully. “You need to put your weight onto it.”

I put both hands on the end of the handle, and pushed down with all my might. It went, mechanisms shrieking. Clear water streamed from the spout. Lahaiyla stole a gulp from the bottle before passing it to me. Again, I drained the whole thing.

There, my much-abused body drew a line in the Tusanto sand. I licked my lips, nausea churning my stomach, then turned away from the well and threw up.

It was mostly liquid. Plainly I had not had much to eat recently.

Lahaiyla helped me hold my hair back from my face as I spat the remnants of my stomach contents into the street. Once I had finished, I found my legs wobbling. I leant heavily on her shoulder for balance.

“Perhaps that was not the best idea,” Aya observed, hands balled on her hips. “Fish-girl, have you any pain in your head?”

“No.” I let go of Lahaiyla’s shoulder. My legs held, but only just.

Lahaiyla sighed, then patted my forearm. An attempt at comfort, perhaps?

"Very well," she said. "Let us head home, then."

 

* * *

 

Lahaiyla’s house was a three-storeyed mud-brick monster on a narrow city lane, rising up behind a row of tents which lined the lane on the sunny side. The entrance was set deep into the wall, between a fortune teller and a spice vendor. Lahaiyla pushed her way between the tents, watched by the beady-eyed spice vendor. She paused before the inset doorway, turned, and beckoned me. it took me a moment to remember that she had invited me in.

Inside, the house was lighter than I had expected. The entrance hall stretched all the way up to the roof, where an internal balcony basked in sunlight flooding through a wide set of carved wooden screens. A set of stairs climbed the wall to a pair of landings, one for each of the upper floors. There were no solid doors, just delicately embroidered curtains stretching across the arched doorways. A pleasant breeze circled through the entire house, stirring the leaves on the plants that adorned every spare flat surface.

There was a flicker in the back of my mind, one of my silver fish dodging in and out of my thoughts. I blinked, and Lahaiyla's voice registered with my conscious.

"There are three bedrooms upstairs - the one with the blue curtain on the door is empty. Take your clothes off before you get in bed; I'm quite certain I saw a flea on you earlier."

"I will." Fleas? I vaguely knew what those were. Come to think of it, there was an itch on my hip.

Climbing the stairs took a lot of energy. By the time I reached the upstairs floor, I was ready to fall asleep there on the floor. Three arched doorways led into sunlit rooms, closed off with heavy woollen curtains. The first was red, the second purple; at the end of a balcony that crossed the stairwell, the third was blue.

Beyond the curtain was a blank, spartan room. One set of drawers, one narrow bed, and an open window that let in a spear of that merciless desert sun. Through the window I had an unbroken view out across the city, down to a circular bay in which dozens of dark shapes – ships, sails furled at rest – sat heavily on the shining blue sea.

I leaned into the window, rested my forearms on the windowsill. A gentle breeze tugged wisps of hair across my face.

From Lahaiyla's house, Tusanto sloped downward, spreading across a steep hillside and a narrow coastal flat before it spilled out into the bay in a rickety shantytown of barges and piers. There was a massive old wall surrounding part of the city that occupied the flat land, and within that section stood a massive white tower, gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. The headlands that marked the port entrance curved around the glittering skin of the ocean, and through them, blue sky met blue sea far off in the distance.

It sang to me. Some invisible touch pulled at my body, persuading me to climb over the windowsill and leap out into the blue unknown.

I turned away from the window, nausea rolling through my stomach again. The bed was starting to look real attractive right now.

There was a movement from the curtain-door: a face in the shadows beyond. "Excuse me," came a girl's voice, "I have some more water, and bread if you would like some. May I come in?"

I took a moment to remember how to speak. "Yes."

A dark hand pulled aside the curtain, and a girl somewhere between Turaya and Lahaiyla in age came through. She wore a robe much like Lahaiyla's, scarlet and gold with thick embroidered hems and a scarf draped over her shoulder and tied at the hip. Her skin was all but black, and when she smiled her teeth glowed like little moons. She carried a wooden tray, which she set down on the stand at the side of the bed.

"My name is Damini, daughter of Alala," she said, standing back and affecting a shallow bow, hands lifted to her chest, palms together. "I'm Lahaiyla's boarder and occasional kitchen hand. She's told me as much as she knows about you, which isn't much. I hear you're not much better off in that respect."

I'd have shaken my head, but the movement threatened to irritate my stomach. "I don't know shit. Feel like I might throw up again."

"Have some bread; that usually helps me." Damini crossed the room, leaning out over the windowsill. I wondered if she felt the call of the void too.

The bread she had brought up was chunky, with thick crusts. I tore off a piece and chewed experimentally. 

Damini glanced my way, closing a wooden shutter over half the window opening. “If you want to sleep, I can close these, but the air in here tends to get quite hot, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”

I swallowed my mouthful, laying myself down on the bed. Suddenly closing my eyes seemed like the most appropriate course of action. “Then don’t. The breeze is nice.”

“Very well,” Damini’s voice began to sound distant. “We’ll let you wake in your own time. It can’t be nice, staying awake when you feel that bad.”

It wasn’t, so I didn’t. I heard Damini’s footsteps leave the room, and then, in between fitful sleeps filled with shapeless dreams, not a whole lot else.

 

* * *

 

I slept for almost an entire day, waking amid the pink glow of a late sunset.  

For the longest moment, I remembered nothing. I lay there on the bed, gazed up at the plastered ceiling, and the shadows grew deeper as the sunlight faded.

But the terrifying moment passed. Memory came flooding back –- what little of it I had. I remembered Lahaiyla, the light that hurt my eyes, and the feeling of hard-packed earth beneath me as I’d lain in the street. Regarding how I had come to be there, or what I’d been doing before then… nothing.

Today, there was a soft mattress and cool sheets underneath me. This was a significant improvement.

Propping myself up on my elbows, I scanned the room. Something tickled my back. I reached around myself and grasped a handful of ripped cloth.

Too late, I remembered Lahaiyla's warning about my clothes.

"Sugar," said my mouth, like it was a swear word. Habit, maybe? I scrubbed the gum from my eyes with the heels of my palms and rolled awkwardly off the bed. Something ripped, and the left leg of my shorts fell apart. "Sugar," I repeated. Maybe I didn't know any better swears.

Stripping off the rest of my clothes, I dumped the remnants on the floor and dragged my fingers through my matted, greasy hair. There was a subtle lump on the back of my skull, perhaps the injury that had robbed me of my memories. It didn't seem very impressive, but when I pulled my fingers out, flakes of dried blood had gathered under my fingernails. I turned back to the bed. The covers were rumpled, smeared with the same red dust that covered my old clothes, but I saw no blood.

A pale streak on my forearm caught my attention. Looking closely, the skin under my sunburn was crisscrossed with dozens of old, faint scars. Most were small and thin, knife scars. One followed the length of my arm up and onto my shoulder. There were more on my chest and belly, a few little pockmarks like puncture wounds and a ragged tear that went from just beneath my ribs to my right hip.  

Outside, the dusk deepened. Something shifted in my abdomen, and suddenly I was caught between desperately needing a drink, and desperately needing a toilet.

Looking around, I caught sight of a pile of clothes where Damini had left the tray last night, alongside a sealed bottle of water. Someone had anticipated my needs.

The first item of clothing on the pile turned out to be a pair of shorts, slightly tighter than the ones I'd been wearing, and in much better shape. It was followed by a loose wraparound jacket, bright green and heavily embroidered, which almost reached my knees when I put it on. Both felt a lot lighter than the clothes I’d discarded, thin enough to let the breeze through.

Standing, I gathered my old clothes and put them on the table. Suddenly, I felt more awake, alert.

Priority one was answering the call of nature. Poking my head out into the rest of the house, I scanned the balcony and the floors below for signs of life. There was a flickering oil lamp at the head of the stairs, and nothing else.

I grumbled wordlessly to myself. Guess it was time to do some adventuring.

I returned to the bedroom ten minutes or so later, having eventually found the restroom on the ground floor. In hindsight, that made perfect sense. I crossed to the window and looked out, the night air playing at my jacket. The sunset had all but faded.

It was a cloudy evening, though the night sky and a few early stars could still be seen through the odd gap in the clouds. Down in the city, thousands of lights shone, and out on the harbour, the ships at anchor were lighting up as the crews lit their own lamps. Several smaller boats sailed steadily back to their berths from the harbour mouth. Fishing boats, my brain supplied -– from where, I didn’t know.

The western horizon was still glowing, pink and pale purple-grey. I watched the last flush of gold disappear, and a stab of urgency ran through my veins. An impression formed in my mind: that was where I needed to be. Out there with the sunset, on the other side of the horizon.

There was a noise behind me. I pulled my head back inside the room and turned to face the intruder.

Damini peeked through the half-closed curtain. “Good evening. I thought I heard noises, so I came up to check,” she explained, offering me a lopsided smile. “It’s good to see you’re up. You must have been exhausted.”

“I was,” I said. My shoulders loosened, hands falling to my sides again.

The girl bent, gathering my old clothes from the floor beside the bed. A scrap of blue cloth fluttered to the floor, its last tenuous tie to the rest of my jacket broken. She made a face. “I’m thinking these are most likely beyond help. I mean, Aya might be able to repair them, if that’s what you want, but personally I doubt it. Do you want to keep them?”

I shook my head. I felt no attachment, no emotion bar a mild disgust at the state of them. “No. These new clothes feel much better. Smell better, too.”

“Good. I know just the place to put them -– the incinerator.” Damini crossed the room, joining me at the window. “The weather has cooled down nicely out there. Earlier it was stinking hot. Were you cool enough up here?”

“I don’t know,” I leant back against the window frame, wiping sleep from my eyes. “I slept well enough, or at least I feel like I did.”

“True,” Damini smiled, her black eyes glittering with good humour. “No luck with remembering anything more?”

I gathered my thoughts, sorting through the past twenty minutes with a fine-toothed comb. "No. Nothing."

"Not even a name?" Damini asked. "Aya's been calling you 'fish-girl' all day. I was half-expecting a Fishman when I came up to see you yesterday."

"No name," I said, the end of the sentence turning into a massive yawn. I rubbed my eyes, blinking the remnants of seep away. "What's a Fishman?"

"A different species of person," Damini explained. "They often appear with aspects of fish species, and they live in a nation underwater, hence the name." She gave me a sidelong look. "You're probably not a Fishman. I don't see any gills on you."

My hand came up to rub the side of my neck. "I definitely don't have gills. Don't think I have a name either."

Damini hummed, her dark eyes sympathetic. "Do you mind if I give you one? We can't keep calling you fish-girl, and... there's something wrong about a person without a name."

I shrugged. "Sure. I don't mind not having one, but I guess it'd get confusing after a while."

"It would, I think." Damini thought for a moment, then laughed. "How does Lysandra sound to you?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Gale, Arethusa, Kajiki, Lonnai?" Damini listed off a string of names that sounded like they'd come straight out of storybooks and legends. None fit me. "Megaera, Idonea, Leda, Tamarai?"

Idonea struck a very quiet chord in the back of my mind. I considered it, rolling the sound of the name around my mouth, then discarded it. "Doesn't work for me."

With each new word, I began to feel that it was a fool's errand to find something that fit.  _I_ barely knew myself; how could I decide what collection of syllables described me enough to pin my identity to them for the foreseeable future? I was a blank space in the world, and until now I'd been happy that way.

Then she said something that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“What about Loki?”

I stared down at the lamps in the street, hardly daring to breathe. Memories flickered in the back of my mind, stirred up by that one word. They faded rapidly, but I stubbornly held onto the word, unwilling to let it just sink back into obscurity. “Loki,” I whispered, and something about it sank right down into my bones.

“Loki?” Damini asked, a small, hopeful smile on her lips. I blinked, and looked back at her.

“It feels... familiar,” I said, shrugging. “I don’t know how or why, but it's as good a name as I'm gonna get.”

“Then that is what we shall call you,” Damini said decisively, clapping her hands in delight. “Loki!”

 

* * *

 

That evening, Lahaiyla fed me a meal of cheese, bread, spicy kebabs, roast tubers and salad, then chased me into a hot bath and gave me the scrubbing of a lifetime. I lost all my strength to the hot water, and by the time she had finished stripping the grime from my body I was just about comatose again. Aya and Damini helped me up the stairs to my room, where I collapsed into the bed and slept another sixteen hours straight.

It took four days before my sleep schedule realigned itself with the cycle of night and day. I spent most of my waking hours exploring, first the house and its surrounds, then the busy streets that led out into the rest of the city, and Tusanto itself. Gradually I built up a map of the world in my head, and as it grew, I felt a little less lost by the day.

Damini became my near-constant companion in that time. She led me back and forth across the city, down to the port, up to the ancient white palace on the hill where, she said, Tusanto’s kings had once lived, and further afield, to the great College on the outskirts of the city. Carolinge was an old kingdom, and Damini seemed to know anything I could have wanted to know about it. She answered my questions with great detail, something I came to appreciate. She liked to talk; I learned more about her own past than I did mine, but I found I did not mind this. Damini knew how to make things interesting.

But it was always what was beyond the horizon which demanded my attention the most. Damini smiled when I told her this, and spent an afternoon teaching me about the wider world.

Large and small details alike burned themselves into my memories –- the string of bright flags across the porch of what Damini told me was a temple, the smells of salt and smoke and assorted humanity hanging heavy in the air, the bright azure hue of the sky and the wispy, translucent clouds within it. Carolinge’s heat and ever-present dust coloured my recollections, the splendid gold and purple hues of the sun setting over the waves in the harbour a permanent reminder of what I felt I was missing.

I still couldn’t remember anything from before my arrival in the street outside Lorna’s house. And these days, the little fish of my memories came less and less often.

On the seventh day, Damini dragged me down to the port a second time. A ridiculous sight, I’d been told, as I stood head and shoulders taller than her and yet trailed along after her like an obedient puppy. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, and the sun beat down hotter than any day I’d experienced yet. I followed without reserve, though sunburn on my face and forearms reminded me of just what tended to happen on days like this.

“Why the rush?” I asked when Damini’s pace sped up from a brisk walk to a near-run. “It’s just on noon. We have all afternoon.”

“I heard a rumour that one of the Marines’ Admirals is due to arrive sometime around one o’clock,” she explained, flashing me an impish grin and looking away almost as quickly. “I wanted to see him arrive, and I thought you might like to see him as well.”

“Which one?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. 

“Aokiji,” Damini supplied. “The blue pheasant, in the ancient language I told you about, Yamato. You know, I never understood why the World Government adopted Yamato for formalities. It must have been much more widespread during the Void Century, but I know for certain it was never used in Mariejois before the formation of the Word Goverment. Strange, don't you think?”

I shrugged, my way of letting her know I hadn’t understood a word of what she’d said. Damini was a College student, and often came out with bits and pieces of esoteric information that confused even people without my sort of total amnesia.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her usual smile morphing into a self-conscious grimace. “I couldn’t help it. Just ignore that, it doesn’t have anything to do with Aokiji. What was I saying?”

I shrugged again. “All I know about the Admirals is that there are three of them, they're hugely powerful, and they’re named after animals.”

“Splendid,” Damini grinned, her good humour restored. “Aokiji, Akainu, Kizaru. Blue pheasant, red dog, yellow monkey. Rather strange, as titles go. I guess you could call them the Marines’ highest field operatives, as the Fleet Admiral, their immediate superior, only rarely leaves the Marine’s headquarters in Marineford, on the other side of the Red Line. They’re the ones who deal with those who violate the Tenryuubito Laws –- in person.”

Damini had told me about the Tenryuubito Laws a few days ago, during a morning where we had seen an entire street full of people prostrate themselves before a lone woman wearing a glass dome on her head. It had seemed silly to me, until Damini had dragged me away down an alley, all but gibbering with fear. There had been an escort of high-ranked Marines with the Celestial Dragon, lingering a few paces behind her. The Marines had not forced the townspeople to their knees -- they did it of their own accord, the moment the whisper had rushed down the street.

It was kind of creepy, in my opinion.

“Anything else?” I asked, knowing there was. There always was, with Damini.

“Well there is, actually.” And she stopped, and looked up at me. “Have I told you about Devil Fruits yet?”

“About what?” I frowned, turning to gaze back at her. It was a familiar term, but only as far as I might have heard it on the street somewhere.

She smiled, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her scarlet robes. “I see I haven’t. It’s an unpardonable oversight, and I shall rectify that herewith.”

“Right. So what are they?”

We passed under the gates to the port district, surrounded on all sides by a steady stream of people. The district itself was just as full of activity, streets packed with Carolingens and foreigners alike as they hurried between the workshops and the docks. Wooden buildings clustered close against one another, intersected by dozens of tiny alleyways and connected on upper floors by walkways and cables ties between balconies, with flags, clothes being washed, and even birdcages hanging from these flimsy supports. As much of the district was built on stilts in the shallows of the harbour as on dry land. In the wooden streets above the water, the faint lapping of waves against the supports could be heard beneath the noise of people and the seagulls wheeling in the sky above.

Like everywhere else in the city, small stalls lined the streets, selling all manner of wares. Down here, the predominant theme was maritime bits and pieces, and seafood. Damini bought me a fried oyster almost as big as my hand, which kept me occupied for the next few minutes while she spoke.

“Devil Fruits are specific fruits, grown on rare trees in half a dozen islands the world over, which, when eaten, give the consumer certain almost magical powers, but at the cost of never being able to swim again. Water hates the Devil Fruits, you see. There’s something in it, particularly in seawater, which seals their powers." Damini pointed down at the road, and the waves lapping at hidden piles beneath our feet. "Sometimes you'll hear Devil Fruit users called 'hammers', because they sink like stones. Still, some of the powers the Fruits will grant are quite incredible, which explains why so many people still eat them.”

“What sort of powers can you get?” I asked through a mouthful of my oyster.

"Swallow, Loki!" Damini put her hand over her mouth and raised her eyebrows at me. I chewed hard and swallowed obediently. She grinned at me, then tipped her head back, gazing pensively at the sky.

“Example time. Aokiji has the Hie-Hie no Mi-“

“The what?” I interrupted, sure I hadn’t heard that correctly. Damini shook her head, still smiling.

“The Hie-Hie no Mi. Devil Fruits’ names come from Yamato. I was never good at languages, but ‘hie’ means something like ‘ice’, and ‘no Mi’ translates loosely to ‘the fruit of’. So, the Hie-Hie no Mi is ‘the fruit of ice’. It gives Admiral Aokiji the power to create, manipulate, and physically become ice. We class it as a Logia, an elemental-type power. Of the three classes, Logias are the rarest, and some of the most flashy and powerful. I believe the other Admirals also have Logia powers.”

“Classes?” I barely had to prompt Damini to explain.

“There are three classes, one with two sub-classes. The first class are the elemental Logia powers, then Zoan powers, which allow their user to transform wholly or partly into an animal. The Zoan class also has two sub-classes: Ancient Zoan, which are animals that existed a long time ago, and Mythical Zoan, which are animals that only ever existed in myth. Hence the names, obviously. Then you have the Paramecia class, which basically comprises of every power left over from the other two. They’re the most common, and also the most varied.” She skirted the base of a huge stone tower, walking purposefully into a shadowed alley at the base and clambering up a pile of rubbish and onto a ledge cut into the tower about twelve feet up. “Okay, up here, Loki. Follow me to the best views in Tusanto.”

I pulled myself up after her, the lesson on Devil Fruit continuing.

“For a Paramecia example, Whitebeard’s Fruit is probably the best. He has the Gura-Gura no Mi. ‘Gura’ is the sound of earthquakes in Yamato – an onomatopoeia, you know? So correspondingly the Gura-Gura no Mi allows him to create earthquakes. It’s theoretically powerful enough to destroy the world, which is a distinction I’ve never seen used for any other Devil Fruit before, even some of the most powerful Logias.” She laughed and turned on her heel, smiling back at me. Suddenly she looked older, wiser. “Then again, that’s how the world works, isn’t it? Diamonds in the rough.”

The ledge narrowed at the end, leading into an internal corridor. Damini led me along it, hop-skipping between cracks in the flagstones. “Anyway, the reason I brought you up here is because the Admiral who's coming here is Aokiji rather than Kizaru or Akainu. The other two travel on warships, but Aokiji occasionally turns up on his own. If there was one Devil Fruit I’d consider eating, it’d be the Hie-Hie no Mi. It’s like the sea doesn’t even exist for him.”

“What do you mean?” The corridor turned into a spiralling staircase, ceiling so low I had to avoid knocking my head on it. The back of Damini’s trailing scarlet robes disappeared up the steps in front of me.

“Well, you’ll see when we get where we’re going. This is one of the oldest buildings in Tusanto, the king watchtower. Once upon a time it was the Guardian hub, but these days it’s officially disused and technically off-limits to civilians. Everyone and their mother knows at least half a dozen different ways to get into it, so unofficially the Guardians… turn a blind eye.” Damini pushed open a wooden door at the top of the staircase, and a warm breeze raced into the tower. She led the way out onto a broad walkway, fenced with battlements, which looked out high above the surrounding buildings.

I followed her along the walkway, catching glimpses of the harbour between the crenellated battlements. The water wasn’t very far away, perhaps half a dozen blocks. The seagulls screaming in the air above the city did not quite drown out the murmur of the crowds below.

At the end of the walkway, there was another set of stairs, leading up and around the outside of the tower. Damini raced up to the landing, turning to wait expectantly for me.

“Come on, there’s only a few stairways left. And up the top, you can see _everything_.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I reassured her, starting up the steps. My breath came harsh and wheezy. Climbing stairs was nothing new to me; it was just that I’d never climbed so many in one go.

She was right, I realised as I arrived at the top of the stairs. Damini leaned over the battlements, unable to go any higher. A cool sea breeze tugged at her robes, setting the loose ends aflutter. She blazed in the sunlight, clad in a supernova, her skin and hair inky black against the bright blues of sea and sky. 

The watchtower must have been the highest point for miles around. Tusanto sat in the middle of a vast bowl, the harbour occupying the lower half while the city itself sprawled over the flat land behind the port, reaching up onto the surrounding hills. The blocky white Palace, the home of Carolinge’s Parliament, sat on the nearest hillside a couple of miles to the south, while the College, made of the same white stone, occupied a lower hill on the northern side of the harbour. The gap which led from harbour to open ocean gleamed, pale with more than just reflected sunlight.

“Look,” Damini breathed, nodding towards the harbour entrance. “I think that’s it.”

“What is it?” I asked, frowning, unable to figure out what the growing white mass was. Damini shook her head, absorbed in the spectacle.

“Ice,” she murmured. “For a short time, Aokiji can turn the surface of the ocean to ice.”

I watched in silence as the ice spread across the water, a pale finger stretching towards the Marines’ dock on the southern side of the district. There was a dark shape, barely large enough to be seen at this distance, moving slowly across the surface of the frozen waves.

“They say he has a bicycle that he rides across the ocean,” Damini said softly, grinning in open awe. “Light and molten rock are all well and good, but he’s the only Devil Fruit user I’ve heard of who can navigate the world’s oceans without the use of a ship.”

Something surged in my chest. That sort of freedom – I wanted it.

A faint crack split the air, fading rapidly but soon followed by another one. Then more; the ice was breaking up behind the admiral. But he’d reached the safety of the dock by now, and I lost sight of him amongst the Marine vessels berthed there.

“That’s what I wanted to see,” Damini said, leaning on the battlements with a satisfied look in her charcoal eyes. “I think I was ten, the last time an Admiral ventured all the way out here. That would have been six, close to seven years ago now. When they come to the New World, they usually stay near Chaeronea or their G1 base.”

“Then you’re… sixteen?” I guessed, latching onto the only fact I understood in that sentence. Damini shot me a coy look.

“Closer to seventeen, actually. By rights I should still have a year of study left up at the College, but I skipped a grade a few years back. So once I graduate next week, I’m free as a bird!” Her mood dropped, as quickly as it had risen. “Only thing is, now I have no idea what to do with it.”

“Well, what do you want to do?” I asked, drifting back to the stairs. Damini followed me, brows pulling down in a faint frown.

“Honestly? I don’t know. My options are either to go back to my family, submit to my father’s demands to marry a Guardian and probably join the police academy, or to stay here and carry on in the College. I’d hate being a Guardian wife, but becoming a professor or a politician doesn’t appeal to me either. I studied meteorology and geography; it would be good to use those skills somehow.” She paused at the top of the stairs. There was something her voice I recognised, which in itself was a rare enough occurrence that it was worth noting.

 _She feels trapped,_  I thought. _There’s something she feels is out there for her, just over the horizon._

"It's just... I'm sure there's more! I want to travel, go around the world. See all sorts of new things. Here in Carolinge, we're a summer island. I've never seen snow, seen Ice only inside freezers. Even rain is rare on this coast. We're living in a desert climate year-round.” She gazed out across the water, a flinty glimmer in her black eyes. “I just want to start walking someday, and never stop."

“You wouldn’t get far,” I began, and she looked sharply at me, lips immediately forming an objection. “Water all around,” I clarified hurriedly -- perhaps I'd been too literal. “Can’t walk on water.”

She stared at me for a long moment, long enough that I wondered whether I was forgiven or not. “True enough. If that’s your sense of humour, I think it might take me a while to get used to it.”

I sighed, turning back to the descending stairs. “It wasn't really a joke -– I just said it without thinking, before I realised you might take it differently. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be,” she said graciously, and I could tell by the sound of her voice that she grinned her impish grin again. “You’re right, after all. Although there is another reason, other than the one you just mentioned.”

“There is?” I waited until she reached the landing, then fell into step beside her. She nodded, eyes wide and earnest.

“Pirates. They’re everywhere, out on the ocean. Usually you’re safe if you’re on land, because the major islands are all part of someone’s territory and knowing there will be reprisal from someone else who's big and nasty is enough of a deterrent for most. The seas out here are fair game, on the other hand. Even the Marines don't set sail without preparing to be attacked.”

"Are pirates that much of a problem?" I wondered why there were only three Admirals if that was the case.

"Here in the New World they can be." Damini smiled. "The four Blues and the first half of the Grand Line are more dominated by the World Government, but here in the New World we grow up knowing that chaos is just around the corner. Not many pirate crews survive for long out here, but the ones that do tend to be very strong. I mentioned Whitebeard earlier? He is the strongest pirate in the world, and one of the oldest. He has claimed Carolinge as his territory. We're under his protection -- which is actually more of a deterrent to lesser pirates than the World Government. "

Despite her harsh words, Damini was grinning. "You don't look as though you disapprove of that much," I observed, feeling a faint smile drift across my lips.

She ducked her head, pressing the cuff of her robe over her face to hide the smile on her lips. "Pirates fascinate me. Some of them, anyway. Whitebeard is one of the better class -- he’s been a major power in the New World for close to forty years, which is incredible, no matter what you think of the man, and he's known for treating his allies like crew and his crew like family.” She looked around furtively, seeming pleased that we were alone. “Everyone I know thinks that pirates are dangerous hellions, with no exceptions. I would be ridiculed for admiring one, even a Yonkou. It is a relief to finally be able to tell someone without fear of being punished for it."

"Lahaiyla being a lawyer, would she have punished you?"

Damini stopped smiling. "Yes, and I would have understood had she done so. She sees the damage pirates leave behind, even when they're trying to get along with the rest of us. But you, you have a completely open mind, because you don't have memories telling you what to think. What is it like?"

I frowned out at the sea. "I feel blank. I can't remember what it's like to feel some emotions, though I know what they're called and what they should feel like. I'm noticing small things, and I feel like I shouldn't bother with remembering them -- but I do anyway, because it bothers me to forget. It feels like I'm trying to fill my head up with things – anything I can – because it's frightening when it's empty. When I first woke up, I was nothing and no-one. I... didn't really mind that at first; it was relaxing not having to think, but now I'm frightened that if I stop thinking I'll lose it all again."

"Your mind sounds busy," Damini commented, clambering down onto the rubbish pile we'd scaled earlier that day. "How do you feel about that?"

"Blank, again. Like I just don't care. I know I do care, but it's hard to... feel it." I tipped my head back, gazing up into the darkening sky. The sun had slid further earthwards in the time that we'd been standing out on the jetty, and the day was now closer to evening than afternoon.

I turned away from the sea, my feet taking me back towards the main body of the port district. Damini followed, uncharacteristically quiet.

Sunlight reflected twice, once off the waves in the harbour and once in the tower windows. Past the grime and dust coating the glass, the panorama of the docklands, and behind that, the sea, stretched from the bluff on which the palace sat to the hills where, somewhere, Lahaiyla’s house existed.

There was a dark shape blotting out the part of the reflection directly behind me. I stepped back, and the shadow resolved into a pair of figures. I recognised Damini, a short, slim girl swathed in red and orange, but the tall blonde woman beside her I had never seen.

Instinctually, I looked into the blonde woman's eyes. Unblinking, she stared back at me. Her chest rose and fell, breathing calmly. Her green jacket fluttered in the breeze, lending a semblance of life and movement to the delicate birds embroidered on her sleeves.

Her eyes widened at the same time as my own. She was me.

She -– _I_ was tall; Damini's eyes would have been about level with my chest. My hair – shades of sunstreaked gold and wheat – just brushed the tops of my shoulders in a loose ponytail. Shorter locks around my face framed a broad, high forehead and big, slanted eyes. A slightly square, solid jaw meant I wasn't and would never be elegant like so many of the Carolingen women I'd seen, while high cheekbones and heavy eyelids gave me a sharp, piercing gaze. I looked into my own eyes and the intensity of my regard sent a shiver across my scalp.

I looked down at myself; saw broad shoulders and strong limbs, coupled with a fighter's stance: feet planted solidly, a little over shoulder-width apart, arms resting loosely at my sides. The Carolingen robes swathing my figure fluttered in the breeze, afternoon sunlight setting the bronze edging ablaze.

Cocking my head to the side, I studied how my reflection mimicked the movements, focusing and memorising each and every feature. _This is me,_ I thought, and at last I had a face to put to the name -– _Loki._

Loki meant this blonde hair, these slanted blue eyes, and a sharp, scrutinising gaze, letting no small detail past without being inspected, judged, and remembered.

I wouldn't forget again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The main objective of this rewrite is to cut down the overall word count of this fic. I got up to nearly 120k in the old version and I hadn't even gotten through a quarter of what I'd planned. I like me a good long fic, but I also like the story to advance, and I felt the old version could get pretty meandering at times. We'll see how this goal of mine goes.


	3. haloes made of summer

 

_\- haloes made of summer -_

**...**

Carolinge baked under the heat of a late summer day.

Sun, more white than gold, blazed in a cloudless sky. The orange desert shimmered, dust and heat devils obscuring the distant ground. The sea glittered, waves beyond the haven breaking up the otherwise flat blue-green expanse. Carolinge’s dusty air coated the inside of my mouth.

I was lying on the thin ledge outside my bedroom window, my head in a steadily shrinking patch of shade. My body baked in the sun, but I had no energy to move. My beautiful wraparound jacket collected grit in uncomfortable places.

I was alone in the house. Lahaiyla was at work; Aya and the kids had gone down the street to visit friends, and Damini was up at the College, rehearsing for her graduation ceremony. It was my first time being home alone. The big house was silent and empty--too empty for my tastes.

I’d come out to the ledge to listen to the sounds of the street market, and under the heat of the sun I’d slipped into a state halfway between sleep and wakefulness. I could hear the market’s noises, the screeches of seagulls and the grinding of cart wheels against the stone cobbles, but it all seemed so far away. Inconsequential.

In the darkness behind my eyes, I could see the flashes of my memories. New memories far outweighed the old ones these days, as different as birds to fish. Every so often, I found something old, something I’d forgotten.

Then all too often, I promptly—again—forgot. In the dark of the night it was enough to drive me to frustrated tears.

Today, there were no fish. I breathed in deep, as slow as possible to avoid inhaling the ever-present dust, then let it all out in a rush. I opened my eyes, staring up at the sky. There was a tiny wisp of cloud up there, so small I hadn’t noticed it at first. It drifted on a high wind, gradually putting out a bloom of white that doubled in size as I watched.

Inside the house, something slammed in the wind.

I shot upright, cracking my forehead against the overhanging roof that had given me my patch of shade. Sharp pains shot through the inside of my skull. Groaning and clutching at my forehead, I scrambled back through the open window into the relative darkness of the house.

A voice floated up out of the stairwell. I blinked, the pain in my head fading. The voice belonged to a man, and he was trying to be quiet.

Guests? Thieves? There had been a doctor last week, but he hadn't bothered to lower his voice. 

Padding to the door on my bare feet, I gazed down through the gap between the door and curtain. There was someone down there -- a man dressed in patterned light brown, his hair and skin about the same color. He raised a hand to his mouth and spoke. I didn't catch the words.

There was an empty holster on his belt. He turned to look into the kitchen, and I saw the gun in his other hand.

I had learned many things over the past few weeks. One of the most important was that guns were bad news.

I pulled away from the door, hurrying back to the window. Climbing out onto the ledge, I pushed the shutters closed so the lock clicked from the inside, a trick I'd learned by locking myself out a couple of evenings ago. 

The ledge ran all the way around Lahaiyla's house at about the level of the first floor. it wasn't quite six inches wide. I pressed myself to the adobe and sidled along until I reached the narrow gap between the house and the neighbours'. At the back of that gap was a ladder. Two nights ago I'd climbed down, into the rear courtyard that bounded the seven properties on the lane. Today I climbed up, onto the second-level ledge, and jumped across the gap to a plant-strewn balcony on the neighbour's house. 

The neighbours, two young professionals, were seldom home at this time. I lay flat on the balcony, coaxing a potted palm aside, and listened for the slightest hint of movement.

Something thumped, a level down. I peeked between the vines of a trailing desert ivy.

There was a window open in the gap between houses, one set of shutters latched and the other loose in the breeze. A voice floated up past my hiding place, barely audible behind the ever-present noises of the lane out the front. 

 _"--got to hurry, Ansel,_ "  said someone, voice cracked and androgynous. A flock of seagulls flew screaming overhead and I lost the next sentence to the wind.  _"--got a bee in his bonnet about this and I don't wanna be the one to tell him no._ "

Another voice replied -- the man I'd heard earlier. _"No sign of the target, fuck me._ "

I strained my ears, thinking furiously. What was the target? Lahaiyla and her family lived modestly, huge house aside. Gold, money -- maybe they had some hidden somewhere.

Something clicked and the latched shutter swung open. The man poked his head out the window. "I'm not seeing shit. Can't you feel a Devil Fruit around here?"

My heartbeat thumped in my chest, so loud I half thought it would give me away. I froze, hoping the plants around me provided enough cover.

" _Can't feel a damn thing. Too many people and all of them so weak._ "

The man leaned further out the window, looking down into the narrow path that led between the houses from the lane to the rear courtyard. The gun glinted, back in its holster. "There's a kitty. Hey, puss puss." He made a kissy noise and snapped his fingers at the cat, which paid him no attention whatsoever. "Damn, it's deaf." 

Long-fingered hands reached out the window, pulling him back by the scruff of his neck. " _We have a job to do, you idiot._ "

I heard quiet grumbling, and then nothing.

I remained in my hiding spot for five minutes or so, listening hard and thinking harder. Lahaiyla had never so much as mentioned Devil Fruits. Damini did, but only in the context of faraway legends; she'd never seen one in person. And how could the mysterious second person feel their presence, or lack thereof? 

The house on whose balcony I lurked was empty. If the intruders did not find what they were looking for in Lahaiyla's house, would they turn their attention to those on either side?

I got to my feet, slowly, carefully. There was a pipe on the other side of the balcony, descending to the first floor and then the ground. I climbed over the balcony railing and tested my weight against the brackets that held the pipe in place, then shimmied down to the first-floor ledge. From there I hurried to the rear of the house, where there was a mudbrick pumping station. Behind the pumping station, I could just reach the roof of the house on the other side of the courtyard.

Hauling myself up onto the roof took some doing. I flopped onto the flat adobe, my shoulders and biceps aching ferociously. There was a horizontal niche in the brick wall beside me, and an empty nest in the niche. A little brown feather moved in the breeze.

Gingerly I tucked my hands beneath my head. They were red again, sunburn extending up my wrists and disappearing under my sleeves. My legs wouldn't be much better. 

Heat exhaustion got the better of me. I slipped into a fitful sleep, and dreamed of fish caught in a fisherman's net.

 

* * *

 

I woke in the early evening. The air was still hot, but the oppressive sun had set, and a sea breeze blew from the harbour. I pushed myself up off the dusty roof, and the remnants of a headache gripped my skull and  _squeezed_. I swayed, flattened my hands against the roof and locked my elbows. 

Water -- I needed water.

Licking parched lips, I plotted my way down. I could probably jump; the distance between the roof and the pumphouse was at most eight feet. But there was a balcony not far along the house. I could hang onto the edge of the roof and lower myself down. 

The second option was probably safer. I'd rather not break a leg at this point.

Damini's voice called out to me as I landed safely in the courtyard. "There you are! We've been looking for you, Loki!"

I teased a little extra moisture out of my mouth. "Sorry. I fell asleep in the sun."

Damini raised both eyebrows -- she couldn't do one at a time, something Aya kept teasing her over. "I believe that. You look like a tomato. Come home, I'll get you the aloe gel."

I'd gone through half a pot of the stuff in just under two weeks. The Carolingens could and did get sunburn, but it was my pale skin that suffered most. I couldn't stand the long sleeves and drapy clothing they used to shield themselves from the sun -- it was hot, I'd get sweaty, which made my skin itch, and the sensation of being restricted made my heart beat fast and my stomach curl in on itself with anxiety. Sunburn, unfortunately, was the price of freedom.

On the bright side, I was developing a wicked tan. 

We went into the house through the back door, Damini skipping up the stairs and inside with a spring in her step while I followed, weighed down with fatigue. There was a rug in the hallway, wool woven into intricate geometric patterns and embroidered with sweeping calligraphic script. Normally flat, there was a little wrinkle at the side. I remembered the intruders, and frowned.

Damini grabbed the pot of aloe from Lahaiyla's kitchen cabinet and headed up the stairs. I followed her up and into the bedroom that had become mine, gravitating to the window. Reaffirming that tug I felt whenever I looked out past the harbour had become something of a ritual in the past week.

Today, the sea was brilliant, sparkling aquamarine. A light breeze kicked up small wavelets, breaking the reflected sunlight into brilliant facets like a living, moving jewel.

Damini sat down on the little stool that sat beside my bedside table, fastidiously arranging her robes around her legs. “So…” she began, with enough of an edge to her voice that I turned away from the sea entirely. “When are you going?”

“Going where?” I echoed uncertainly, not sure what she was intending me to understand.

She smiled at me, resigned and yet conspiratorial. “I mean, when are you going off to look for… whatever it is that you think you need to find? The thing that is beyond your horizon, the one you were just looking for. You won’t find it if you stay here in Carolinge forever, that’s for sure.”

I frowned at her, something hammering on my thoughts. “You mean…” I wasn’t sure I had the vocabulary to put it in words, and clenched my hands, pressing them to my belly. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t imagine that you want to stay here, not when you keep looking at the ocean with such a needy expression in your eyes.”

" _Needy?_ " I repeated, a sudden chuckle following the word out of my lips. "Is that what I look like?"

"More or less," said Damini, eyes sparkling. "Maybe you prefer 'wistful, or 'anticipatory', or 'longing'?"

I considered the question with more seriousness than she perhaps intended. "'Anticipatory' sounds about right. I feel like I need to get out there and start looking for something. The problem is, I don’t know where to start. I need to start somewhere, but where? I don’t even know where I _can_ go from here, let alone which way I _should_ go.”

Damini considered me for a long moment. “In my professional opinion… you’re thinking too much.”

“Eh?” I blinked at her, nonplussed. “You’re the one who told me just a couple of days ago that you can never do too much thinking.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “True enough, but you have to intersperse it with some action. Otherwise, you’ll get bogged down in thought, as you are now, and you’ll never get anywhere. The wisest people I know say there’s a time and a place for philosophizing, and another time and place for action. The purpose of life, according to these same people, is to find the perfect balance between these two options. I don’t know if I believe it or not, but if you don’t think you’ll never get better, and if you don’t do anything, you’ll never get anywhere.”

“Then you’re saying that now is the time for action,” I surmised. 

Damini unwrapped the end of her robe from around her head, tugging her long black braid out of the cloth. There was silence, a short restful moment in which it seemed that the world slowed down around us.

“It is certainly something to consider,” she said at length, unwrapping the leather tie that bound her hair. “I just think that if you’re going to do anything, it’s best to do it before you get bogged down in ordinary life. The longer you are here, the tighter the ties that bind you to this place, and the more difficult it will be to break them –- especially when this is the only place you’ve ever known, as far as your memory is concerned.”

I exhaled, closing my eyes and focusing. My hands were shaking just a little; my heartbeat thumped, and I didn’t know why.

“I think you’re right,” I admitted. My eyes snapped open, an instant before I’d come to my conclusion. “I have to go.”

“There you go,” Damini said calmly, unwinding her braid. Black hair spilled between her fingers, and she snatched up the ends before they could trail on the floor. “Now you can start thinking about where, when. If I were you, I’d go within the next couple of weeks. First, so that you find the resolution to go, and secondly, that would give you between a month and six weeks before the pirate season begins.”

“Three days from now,” I said on the spur of the moment. “What's the pirate season?”

“There's a span of about eight weeks each year where the Marines look over their personnel and operations and shake things up.” Damini shook her hair out, picking up a thin comb and gently teasing it through. "It's intended to be a budgeting operation, from what I hear, and that may be true in other seas but here in the New World I would say it costs as much as it saves, because many pirates see it as an opportunity to strike while the Marines are settling into unfamiliar routines and bases and are thus slightly less prepared to intervene."

"Ah." I leant forward, resting my elbows on the windowsill. "What do you suggest I do when I leave?"

Damini's comb encountered a knot. Her eyebrows dipped in a frown. “Go to Lokashiri first. It's a major commercial port about three days’ walk north along the coast road, or a couple of hours on the steam train. You’d be sure of getting yourself passage on some sort of ship. Marine couriers are probably your best bet; they stop anywhere and everywhere.”

There was a cool breeze doing the circuits of my room, rustling the pages of the notebook that sat open on the bedside table. It had been a gift from Damini, bought on a whim when she’d dragged me into a bookshop up on the hilltops near the College a few days ago. Since then, I’d been treating it like a physical memory bank. The first few pages were covered with observations and badly-sketched diagrams of anything and everything that had come into my mind.

Taking the train was out of the question. I had no money for a fare, and I wasn't about to ask any more of Lahaiyla after all the help she'd already given me.

Stopping by the table, I picked up my notebook and closed it, taking care that none of the pages were creased. The night was setting in, and the notes on the paper were barely legible to my eyes. Sighing, I picked up the bright cotton shoulder bag—another gift from Damini—that sat on the floor under the table, and slipped the book into it.

I didn’t own much to pack. The book, the pencils that came with it, and a woollen jacket, warmer than the first one I’d been given. Aside from the clothes on my back, that was it.

Damini shifted, rebraiding her hair. "Loki, may I ask something of you?" 

“What is it?” I looked back at her, curious just because of the way she’d said it. She looked down, frowning intensely at the floorboards.

“I, um… I wanted to ask if it’d be too much trouble if I could come with you.” Her words came spilling out now, a tide that left me bewildered. “I mean, I’m graduating from the College now; I’ve completed the only thing that’s kept me here for years. I don’t have a job to take up, and I don't want to go back to my family. I can be useful, I can fight, my uncles taught me how! And I don’t want you to just walk straight into trouble because you don’t have a clue how to avoid it.”

Her words dried up, and she let out a gusty breath. “Besides which, there is still a lot I need to teach you.” 

I laughed, a croaky chuckle through a still-dry mouth. "I don't mind. It could be good to have the company."

There was a glass of water on the bedside table, left over from last night. It tasted like metal, but I'd dehydrated myself badly sleeping in the sun and every drop was something my body cried out for.

When I turned back, Damini was grinning. “If you say so.”

She stood, reaching past me, and pulled the window shutters closed. “If you need anyone, you know where to find us.”

“Yeah.” I pushed myself to my feet, towering over her once again. “Thank you. I don't know what I would’ve done without you all.”

A nimble-fingered hand rested lightly on my forearm. “You're welcome,” Damini replied.

She withdrew, leaving me alone in the darkened room.

I stripped away my clothes, clambering into the bed and settling under the airy cotton sheets. The mattress was straw, and sometimes apt to poke, but I would take the padding over bare stone any day. I closed my eyes, enjoying the give in the mattress, and despite my earlier nap, sleep claimed me within a few moments.

This time, I dreamed of nothing.

 

* * *

 

Lahaiyla cooked me a massive breakfast in the morning, then sat me down at a little table in the kitchen and spread a crinkled old map out in front of me. 

“Damini tells me you plan to leave us this week.”

I nodded slowly, picking crumbed squid out of my teeth with a fingernail. Lahaiyla’s expressions could be hard to read. “I can stay longer if that's inconvenient.”

Lahaiyla shook her head. “No, that is fine.” She produced a pair of salt and pepper shakers from somewhere in her robes and weighted the edges of the map. Clearly it had been stored in a roll for some time. “In fact, given what happened yesterday I have a nasty suspicion that the sooner you leave, the better.”

Instinctively I read between the lines of her speech, paying careful attention to the somber frown that shadowed her black eyes. “Do you think they'll come back?”

“It wouldn't surprise me,” Lahaiyla replied. She gazed across the map at me, visibly torn between thoughts. “Do you know how often I hear tell of an abandoned sailor without a story to them? My safe had not been so much as touched. They were not interested in valuables.”

“A sailor?” I echoed.

Lahaiyla took my hands, turning them palms-up on the table. Little scars crisscrossed the skin. She prodded a callus that stretched across the upper part of my palm, from little finger to thumb. “I noticed these the first day we had you. They are indicative of a job involving hard labour, particularly with some use of rope. Given the geography of the New World, this almost certainly means you had some sailing work.”

“Oh.” I politely retrieved my hands. Something about having them held and manipulated discomfited me. “Do you think the men yesterday might have been looking for me instead?”

Lahaiyla's eyes narrowed. “It's possible. God knows why, but I'd rather not take the chance. Damini said she had suggested you travel to Lokashiri and find a Marine courier. I think this is the most sensible option, but you would have to walk. The coastal railway was attacked this morning. It will not be operational for several weeks.”

I nodded. “I had planned to walk anyway.”

She gave me a wry look. “I would have given you money for the fare. There are sometimes bandits on the road. The train is --or was-- much safer.”

“What happened to it?”

“We don't know. A freight locomotive saw the damaged section from a hill about a mile off and was able to stop in time. Given the location and description, I suspect the bandits have grown bold.”

“I see.” Resting my hands beneath the table on my lap, I leaned forward, peering down at Lahaiyla's map.

We had found that I knew how to read and write when Damini led me into a bookstore on my second day. There was writing on this map, but the script was completely unfamiliar. “I can't read any of this.”

Lahaiyla chuckled. “Yes, this is our native Carolingen script.” She pointed to two sheltered bays along the coastline. “This is Tusanto, in the south, and here is Lokashiri, more northerly. The road you will take is old and maintained largely by rural communities. It leads through Tusanto’s hills for a day or so, then comes down on the coastal plains south of Lokashiri. The danger of bandits is generally limited to the hilly parts.”

I traced the line that represented the road with a fingertip. “Damini wants to come with me.”

Lahaiyla groaned. “I worry about that girl. She could find herself a job to keep her mind occupied right here in Tusanto, but _no_ , she decides to go chasing the horizon instead. And I'm not her mother; I have no legal standing to stop her.” She gazed across the map at me, a shrewd glint in her eye. “You truly don't mind company?”

“It'd be good to have someone around who knows things I don't,” I said, resisting the urge to sidle out from under her gaze. “Safety in numbers, too.”

Lahaiyla sighed. “She is right in that, I suppose. I… simply worry that she overestimates herself. The New World is vast and cruel and she is just a little girl. Perhaps I am scared, Loki -- I look at her, and I see what I hope my own daughters will grow into. Maybe it is a misplaced mother’s instinct, but I have looked after her these past five years, so I have an excuse."

“I'll protect her,” I said, and the words had the ring of a promise. “I'm not quite as small.”

Lahaiyla shook her head, but I caught a glimpse of a smile on her lips. “Damini has her staff. I will find you a knife. I cannot give you lessons in weaponry but I feel it would be remiss to let you go unarmed.”

“Thank you,” I said, the second time in a little over a day. “I appreciate all your help.”

"It was the right thing to do," Lahaiyla demurred. "Pass on the kindness someday, if you are ever in a position to help. That is how we make the world a better place."

 

* * *

 

Sunlight. Carolinge’s most plentiful natural resource.

It shone down out of a vivid blue sky, far too hot for so early in the morning. I wore the hood of my jacket pulled down low over my forehead in a futile effort to shade my eyes from its harsh rays. There had been cheap sunglasses back at a market in Tusanto -- I should have acquired some while I'd had the chance.

It was a little after seven in the morning. Tusanto's glittering skyline receded between hilltops as we trudged along the narrow, dusty track that was the road north. Damini ranged out in front, swathed in plain cotton robes from head to sandaled feet and looking entirely comfortable with the heat-struck landscape. I, meanwhile, had stripped down to my bra and rearranged the loose green jacket Lahaiyla had given me before I left so that the front hung open to my waist and the back lifted in the breeze. Again, I'd weighed up the options and chosen sunburn over drowning in sweat.

We both carried small knapsacks over our shoulders, filled with dried fruit, Lahaiyla's fresh-baked bread, and -- most importantly -- fresh water. Somewhere at the bottom were a change of clothes and my notebook. Everyone I'd spoken to had urged us to travel light. So far, it seemed that everyone else on the road had had the same idea.

An unfamiliar weight hanging against my right thigh was the knife Lahaiyla had promised me. It was larger than I had expected, maybe a foot long with a curved blade and a cloth-wrapped hilt. Damini carried a staff on her back, black wood that gleamed with a fresh coat of oil, strapped to her shoulders with the ends of her scarf. She handled it with ease born of practice. I felt a pang of envy at the sight. The knife felt foreign in my hands. With luck, I would not be forced to use it.

Ahead, Damini's steps raised puffs of red dust from the trail. Her voice came drifting back to me, muffled in the hot, still air. "Are you all right back there, Loki?"

I considered the question, and replied accordingly. "Ish."

“We’ll find some shade somewhere and take a break at eleven or so,” she replied, glancing back over her shoulder at me. “It’s not good to travel over the hot hours; you’d risk heatstroke.”

“You’ve told me that before,” I reminded her. Stabbing pain shot though my toes as I stumbled on a particularly sharp and jagged stone on the road. “Augh, bloody hell.”

“That’s what you get when you don’t wear shoes!” Damini giggled, scuffing her sandals along the road to illustrate her point. “I’m honestly surprised you haven’t complained about that before.”

I hopped along on one foot for a couple of steps, showing her the soles of my feet. “They’re so callused it hardly matters. That one just got me in between my toes, was all.”

“At least it’s not bleeding,” she observed. “Why didn’t you ask us for a pair of shoes? It’s not as if they’re expensive.”

“Well, I didn’t want to impose on you any more than I was, and then…” I tipped my head back, gazing up into the blue vault of the sky. “I just don’t like the idea of shoes. I like being able to feel the ground under my feet.”

Damini readjusted her knapsack, tucking the dull orange border of her robes beneath the straps. “That sounds like a sensory issue. Boots or sandals might be better, but I suppose that's a concern for Lokashiri."

Cresting the top of a ridge, we stopped for a moment to drink.

The landscape around us was bleak and dramatic, all bare earth, sand and drought. Yellow grasses and low shrubs with leaves that looked more like spines clustered around rocks and the bottom of ravines. The road was more dirt than gravel, uncomfortably hot on my bare feet. As we walked on, I spotted a single goat among a stand of spindly trees. The near-complete lack of life was eerie.

We were far from the only travellers on the road. Every so often, a cart would rumble past on its way to the city, and quite far ahead a solitary figure was visible through heat devils rising from the ground. We passed a pair of foreigners resting on the side of the road, and I was impishly delighted to see that their skin was just as red as mine.

We walked on in silence. I held my arms out from my body, trying to coax fresh air into my jacket. There was some wind, but not enough, and I’d already drank a lot of my water. It was oppressively, torturously hot.

Aside from a slight sheen of sweat on her cheeks, Damini looked perfectly comfortable. She was wearing a looser, longer robe than she had the past few days, with a wide cotton scarf draped over her head. I'd become used to seeing her in bright colours with complex embroidered designs on the sleeves and skirt. This robe was pale brown, and the scarf was pink. Traveling clothes, I supposed.

“How long do these hills keep going for?” I asked, fiddling with my hood until it gave me more shade. “I feel like I’m walking into eternity.”

“Two days’ worth of walking,” Damini replied, grimacing. “The last day is all down on the plains before we get to Lokashiri.”

“And they all look like this?”

“Brown, dead and eroded?” Damini clarified. “Everything on this side of the island looks like that. The mountains east of here form a rainshadow effect. The eastern half of Carolinge is wet jungle, while the west is almost all desert. The difference is split almost exactly down the middle of the island.”

On the side of a nearby hill, a flock of birds rose screaming into the air. The noise split the air like a knife, startling both of us. I glanced at Damini, and she frowned back, eyes wary.

"What was that?"

Damini reached behind herself, loosening her staff. "I don't know. It could be nothing."

"I hope so." I put a hand on the hilt of my knife. "Should we keep going?"

She made a face, uncertain and keyed up. "Stay close, and be on guard. I'm not sure it's any safer to stop."

The track led around a sharp bluff as it continued down the valley. Boulders cluttered the base of the bluff, forcing us out onto the edge of the road. Damini took the lead, scouting out a way through the worst of the collapse. She disappeared around the bluff, and a moment later I heard her let out an sharp cry of surprise.

I stopped dead in my tracks, then continued around the corner at a run. A bright orange hat lay a few yards ahead in the middle of the track, and beyond that, Damini.

She knelt by the side of the road a few yards ahead of me, crouched over something lying heavily on the ground. As I approached, the mass of black and tan resolved into a clear shape -- the prone body of a young man.

Damini leant back, shrugging her pack off her shoulders and digging through the supplies inside. "I guess it's my turn to find some foreigner unconscious in the middle of the road," she muttered wryly, just loud enough for me to hear.

"Who is he?" I crouched down on the man's other side, curiously studying his features. His skin was a little darker than mine, curiously without sunburn. A thick crop of wavy black hair plastered to his head with sweat. Aside from a string of beads around his neck, he was naked from the waist up. He wore black shorts and black boots, both in reasonably good condition. His mouth was open, and as his chest rose and fell with each breath, a faint snore issued from his throat.

"I think he's just asleep," I said. Damini paused, giving the man a strange look.

"In this heat? More importantly, in this place?" She reached out, gingerly prodding his bare chest, then drawing back her hand as if she'd been burnt. "He can't be! He's positively boiling!"

"Maybe he's been out in the sun for a few hours," I suggested. Damini firmly shook her head, rejecting the idea off-hand.

"Out here, that kills. He might have had a run-in with some bandits. Perhaps he _is_ a bandit, he looks enough like one. Look at this tattoo on his arm."

"Close, but no cigar."

The voice was rough with sleep, but charming enough. Damini shrieked and scrambled to her feet with impressive speed; I rocked back on my heels, eyes wide.

The mystery man blinked, focusing first on Damini, then on me. "Now if only I could wake up to two pretty girls every time," he chuckled, pushing himself upright and calmly brushing road dust from the back of his head. Wicked black eyes looked around, scanning the road. He spotted the orange hat on the track, and his face lit up."My hat!"

He loped back up the track, retrieving the monstrosity. I caught a glimpse of a massive tattoo on his back -- a skull on crossed bones, wearing an upturned crescent as a moustache.

"Are you all right?" Damini asked, concern overcoming her surprise enough to step closer to him once more. "We just found you lying in the road; are you ill, or injured?"

"Nah, I'm fine," the man assured Damini with a wide grin. "Nothing to worry about -- I just fell asleep."

"What do you mean, nothing to worry about?" Damini's voice rose in perplexity, her frown deepening. "You're practically burning up!"

"I am," he agreed, grinning nonchalantly as he set the hat back on his head. "The name's Ace, by the way. You two have names?"

Damini scowled, peering at him as though she could find out the truth simply by staring hard enough. "I'm Damini, she's Loki." She waved a hand at me, and Ace glanced back over his shoulder, flashing me a cheeky grin.

"Heya, blondie. What are you two doing out here all alone? A little birdie told me this road was a dangerous one."

"It's also the only one right now," Damini corrected, "and it's not so dangerous -- at least, not that I've heard lately. There are bandits in the hills, but there always are. Where did you hear otherwise??"

Ace shrugged, clearly unconcerned in the slightest. "How should I know the guy's name? I just asked how to get to Lokashiri, and he told me. Simple business." He stretched his arms out behind his back and rolled his shoulders, a pained grimace on his face. "That wasn't the most comfortable napping spot I've ever had, but I guess it could have been worse."

A lot worse, I thought, thinking back to that narrow ledge beneath the window at Lahaiyla's house, and then the gutter in which I'd first woken.

"You say that like it happens a lot," Damini observed drily, settling her bag back on her shoulders. Ace chuckled.

"You could say that. I fell asleep in the back of a cart once, on top of a sack of potatoes. I was finding funny-shaped bruises all over for a good week." He half-turned, looking back at Damini and I out of the corners of his eyes. "Where are you two headed? That guy in Tusanto said travellers have been getting attacked out here for the last couple of weeks."

"Lokashiri," Damini replied, frowning. "I hadn't heard anything about bandits. They don't usually start preying on people until late autumn."

"Who said anything about bandits?" asked Ace. "I'm headed to Lokashiri as well. Wanna team up?"

"Safety in numbers?" Damini's frown loosened. "That sounds like a good idea to me. Loki, what do you think?"

I started. I'd just gotten used to listening to their conversation.

"If I was a bandit, I'd rather pick on two people than on three," I said, after a moment's thought. "Why not, if we're going to the same place?"

"Then it's settled." Ace grinned, offering Damini his hand. She shook it firmly, her small dark hand swamped in his. "Nice to meet you, Damini, and you too, Blondie."

With that, he turned and strode off down the road, not so much as glancing back to see if we were following. I stepped forward after him, but Damini remained where she was, her eyes wider than I'd ever seen before.

"What is it?" I asked, pausing on the road in front of her. She stared past me, her gaze fixed on Ace's retreating back.

"That tattoo!" she gasped, clutching the hand she'd used to shake his hand. "Of course—Portgas D. Ace!"

"What about it?"

Damini's eyes flicked across to mine, filled with a wild amazement. "Portgas D. Ace, also known as _Firefist_ ," she recited, her voice low and urgent. "Loki, he's wanted by the World Government for no less than four hundred million beries. A former pirate captain from the East Blue, he fought the Shichibukai Jinbei to a standstill about six months ago. After that, he and his crew disappeared." She gazed back at Ace, taking a deep, shaky breath. "That tattoo, though… You don't know what it means, do you?"

I shook my head mutely. She glanced up at me, a lopsided smile on her lips, then headed onward after Ace.

"It means he's a member of the Whitebeard Pirates."

 

* * *

 

 

That night, we kept walking until long past sunset. Evening, said Damini, was the best part of the day to travel.

A great silver moon hung over the northern horizon. The earth basked in moonlight that turned the golden earth into peaks the colour of bones, the sky eerily bright even at midnight. The desert turned cool and silent around us minute by slow minute.

Ace found us a clear campsite for the night underneath a rocky overhang, several metres up the hillside from the track. Tinder-dry branches from the dead bushes that dotted the hills served as fuel for a fire, lit by a spark from the pirate’s fingertip. I crouched close to the blaze, so close I could feel my skin tightening in the heat, and basked.

“If you get any closer to that fire, you’ll be sitting in it,” Ace told me, amusement dancing in his dark eyes. “Were you that cold?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I'm mostly just wondering how you did that.”

Ace grimaced as he dug a chunk of rock out from under his thigh. “Did what?”

“The fire thing.” I tried to snap my fingers, mimicking the gesture with which he had lit the campfire. Something went wrong, and I stabbed myself in the thumb with a wayward fingernail. “Ow.”

Ace laughed. “Don't you know about Devil Fruits?”

“I know about them, yeah.” I gave up on snapping my fingers, turning back to the crackling fire. “Did you eat one?”

“Yeah, I did. I thought everyone knew about my power. It’s right there on my bounty poster.”

I shrugged. “I’ve got about two weeks’ worth of worldly knowledge. There's a lot I don't know.”

“So I see.” Ace gave me a long, measuring look. “I ate the Mera-Mera no Mi. I create fire, I control fire, I  _ am _ fire. When people say I’m hot, they mean it literally.”

“I see,” I said. “It sounds useful.”

Ace rubbed his palms together, and sparks dropped into his lap. “It is, matter of fact. Good for shock and awe, and all that, but I’m also fantastic at lighting bonfires and drying wet things out fast!” His eyes sharpened and he looked between me and Damini, smirking. “My turn. I forgot to ask earlier, but what brings you two all the way out here? Aren't you kind of an odd couple to be traveling together?” 

I shifted against the earth, and those lively black eyes flicked my way. “Unless you’re Damini’s berie knight -- are you, Blondie? You don’t really look like one, but I guess I've seen stranger.”

“Her what?” I looked to Damini for an explanation, but she shrugged, uncomprehending. “And my name is Loki.”

“I guess not.” Ace grinned, unrepentant. “Berie knight -- it's like a bodyguard, only cheaper. Or do you not have them in Carolinge?”

“I wouldn’t know, even if we did,” Damini replied. She knelt on the other side of the campfire, gaze fixed intently on the pirate. “I’m -- well, I  _ was _ a scholar by trade. We don’t tend to need that sort of protection.”

“Then how did you end up with Loki?” Ace asked, returning her gaze with open-faced honesty. “No offense, but you mainlanders don’t mix much with other people, from what I’ve seen.”

“None taken,” Damini said smoothly, folding her hands in the sleeves of her robe. “Loki was injured and dumped outside my landlady’s house. My landlady decided to take her in and nurse her back to health. However, I suppose as a result of whatever injured her, she has total amnesia: she can’t remember anything that happened before her attack. We’re looking for something that might help her get her memories back.”

Ace leaned forward, lips quirking in an interested smile. “Sounds like an interesting mission! What happened to you?” he asked, directing this question to me. “You hit your head or something?”

I gave him a placid shrug. “Dunno. Can’t remember.”

“Oh, right.” He turned back to Damini. “You didn’t think of getting a doctor to look at her?”

“Of course we did!” Damini retorted, stung for once into raising her voice. “My landlady’s doctor had a look at her -- this was that first day, Loki, when you were passed out on your bed -- and he couldn’t find anything physically wrong at all.”

Ace grinned. “Huh. That's kinda cool.”

Bile rose in my throat. Battling the urge to throw up all over Ace’s fire, I drew my knees up to my chest, arms resting around my shins. 

My entire body ached. The soles of my feet were worst, abused beyond tolerance by the rough grit of the road. I reached down and ran my fingers across my soles, relieved to find no cuts or blood, only the beginnings of calluses that hadn’t been there yesterday. The muscles in my legs ached almost as badly, but that was easiest to ignore. 

As expected, I’d acquired a nasty sunburn yet again. Thankfully Damini had packed the aloe.

“So, Ace, turnabout is fair,” Damini began, restarting the conversation while I tended to my aches and pains. “How come you’re out here on your own? Didn't want anyone to catch you falling asleep in the middle of the road?”

Ace grinned, flicking a shower of sparks at Damini. “You’re pretty cheeky for someone who knows my reputation so well.”

Damini squeaked, snatching her robes back though the sparks fell well short of her. “Was there any need for that?! We told you what we were doing; now it’s your turn!”

“That’s fair, I guess.,” Ace chuckled. “I’m on a scouting mission for Pops. We had word of a couple small fry crews working up and down the coast around Tusanto. I got rid of ‘em, and now I’m heading back to the rest of the crew. I’d be there by now if they’d let me have a nice little boat.”

“Who’s ‘Pops’?” I asked, trying to work the kinks out of my left shoulder. It would take some work; the muscle felt like it had been set in stone.

Ace scooted forwards, closer to the fire. There was a smattering of freckles across his cheekbones; every time he grinned they spread out in a dusty line below his eyes. “Pops is Whitebeard. He’s like our father, see?”

“Oh.” I gave up on my shoulder, and blinked tiredly into the fire. “I see.”

“Yeah, right,” Ace glanced back at the patch of ground just behind him. He cleared a few rocks away, then laid himself down with his back to the rocky overhang. “I’m gonna stay awake and keep watch, but you two look like you could do with some sleep. You especially, Loki. You look like a damn tomato and it's giving me sympathy pains.”

“She does, doesn't she,” Damini agreed, fighting back a yawn. “Goodnight, both of you.”

I glanced at her and then Ace, who had crossed his arms behind his head and now gazed up at the night sky, expression solemn, his hat sitting on the ground at his side. I hadn't yet made up my mind on whether to trust him. He felt genuine, but a voice in my head called doubt on his story. Both sides went to war, and the only conclusion I could come to was a headache.

Damini curled up a safe distance away from the fire, falling asleep within minutes. I stayed crouched close to the fire for a while, then decided I’d had enough of the direct heat and moved backwards a tad. The night air was cool and fresh in comparison. Soon I found my eyelids drooping closed.

Just for a few minutes, I promised myself. I closed my eyes, and like a thief, slumber gently stole me away.


	4. a man without ground

\- _a man without ground_  -

It was just before dawn when I woke. ‘A few minutes’ had turned into a few hours.

Dammit.

The sky was a strange shade of yellow near the eastern horizon, fading to a gentle pink blush and then to grey-blue in the west. The air was still and chilly, echoing with the songs of hidden desert birds. The embers of last night’s fire smoked gently, a few glowing coals still giving off a faint heat.

Ace laid spread-eagled on his back with his mouth wide open, fast asleep. Irregular snores sounded in time with the rise and fall of his chest. There was a little spider industriously spinning a web over his head, dewdrops decorating the silk. If he sat up, he’d collect a faceful of wet web.

“Oh, you’re awake?” Damini spoke from somewhere behind me. I glanced back over my shoulder as she emerged from behind a clump of scraggly bushes. “Good. Morning is the best time for travelling, before it gets too hot. We should make it out of the hills by nightfall.”

“What’s the hurry?” I asked. “You sound a bit urgent.”

Damini gave me a dry look. “This,” she said, and upended her knapsack. A few stale breadcrumbs and an empty cloth wrap tumbled out.

“Where’s the rest? The bread, the fruit?” I frowned in consternation. “This isn’t good.”

“It isn’t,” Damini agreed, her expression flat. “The food you were carrying hasn't been touched, but it won’t last the three of us for more than two days. I notice Mister Portgas hasn’t got any of his own provisions.”

We both gave the sleeping pirate a long look. He shifted in his sleep, scratched at an old scar on his chest, the picture of innocence.

Damini shook her head. “He ate it, didn’t he.”

I made a noise halfway between laugh and sigh. “Yup.”

As the sun rose, Damini and I shared half a herb loaf between ourselves, making a half-serious pact to keep the rest of our food well out of Ace’s notice. The pirate himself woke just after we’d finished the last morsel, and sat up without noticing the spiderweb half an inch from his nose. It took him a couple of minutes to evict the startled spider from his hair, by which point Damini was half-comatose from laughter and I was quickly following suit.

“I’m gonna get you two one day, see if I don’t.” Ace scowled, picking the last of the web from his forehead.

Damini picked herself up from the ground, taking pity on Ace and passing him one of the water canteens. “I promise I'll give you first dibs whenever you're ready.”

Ace brightened up, taking a long swig. “Eh, guess I'll let you off for now,” he said mock-magnanimously, recapping the canteen with a flourish. “You gotta pay up when the time comes, okay?”

“Deal,” said Damini. She looked to the east and stood, wrapping her scarf over the lower half of her face. “The sun is coming up; let's get going.”

She led the way back down onto the track, Ace and I following like little chicks.

After about an hour of walking, I decided that my feet had toughened up overnight. The odd sharp bit of gravel on the road didn’t bother me as much as it had yesterday. I paused for a moment, balancing on one leg as I inspected a new callus on my heel. My body was getting used to the exertion, just as I’d hoped.

Looking up, I realised Ace and Damini were pulling further away in front of me. I shifted my knapsack to my other shoulder and ran to catch up.

Damini turned back to me with a grin. “What were you doing all the way back there, Loki? You’ll get left behind.”

I settled into step beside her, catching my breath. “I was just looking at something.” The water canteen bounced at my hip. I twisted the cap off and brought it to my lips, taking a gulp of the still-cool water. Even this early, the sun had power.

“Hey, you could always keep your eyes on us,” Ace quipped. “I’m a lot more interesting than anything else in these hills.”

I stared at him -- mostly at the bright orange hat and the misspelled tattoo on his left bicep. “I agree.”

Ace raised an eyebrow. “That didn't sound as positive as it should've.”

Damini giggled, shaking her head at the expression on his face. “Loki tells it as it is, Ace. You’ll get used to it.”

“I hope so.” Ace gave me a lopsided grin. “You’re pretty interesting yourself. I wonder what you were before you lost your memories?”

I splayed my hands, looking down at them with a watchful frown. The calluses Lahaiyla had noted spread right across my palms, extending up to the tips of my fingers. There was a smaller, darker callus on the side of the middle finger on my right hand, where I held my pencils when I wrote. The former were not new; I’d had them since I woke in the street in Tusanto. The latter was small and comparatively soft; I’d mistaken it for a bruise at first.

“Those look like rope calluses,” Ace commented. He showed me his own palms; rough and weatherbeaten, with almost the same pattern of calluses as my own. “You get them if you work on rigging duty for long.”

“That supports Lahaiyla’s theory,” Damini mused. “I hope we're on the right track.”

I let my hands fall to my sides again, eyes flicking inevitably up at the hills surrounding us. As I did, I caught sight of something in the air -- a faint column of greyness, drifting through the cloudless sky.

Damini spotted it at the same time as I did. “That’s strange,” she said, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand and squinting. “Isn’t that smoke?”

“It is,” Ace said. He sidled past me, jumping the bank in one supple movement, and disappeared into the scrub.

Damini and I gave each other a look, exchanging concern and resignation in equal measure. She moved to follow Ace up the hill, and I followed in the next moment.

We caught up to him on the top of the ridge. Ace gazed out over a stepped bluff which melted into steep scrubland, the hillside plunging down to a deep valley through which a dry streambed snaked on its last journey to the sea. Perhaps half a mile north along the rocky coast, a headland jutted out into the sea. On top of the headland clustered a handful of dark shapes that I barely recognised as wooden huts.

It was from one of these huts that the column of smoke poured. Something tickled my nose -- the smell of ash. Where there is smoke, there is fire, and the sea breeze drove it straight to us.

“Pirates!” Damini gasped. She pointed out further, to a ship that drifted at anchor in the sea off the headland. The morning sunlight plainly illuminated a skull-and-crossbones device printed on the mainsail.

“Hmph,” Ace said. A thin frown flashed across his face and disappeared, leaving behind an expression of cool self-control. “I guess my mission isn’t quite over yet.”

“What do you mean?” Damini asked. A dark hand rose to her mouth, knuckles pressing hard against her lips.

“I mean that Pops told me to get rid of all the guys that were making trouble here in Carolinge.” Ace gestured down at the village, grinning. It wasn't a nice grin. “I guess these guys didn’t get the news.”

I frowned down at the burning village. “What can we do to help?”

Damini gave me a look of mixed surprise and fear, but Ace’s smile turned approving.

“Come over here a moment,” he said, beckoning us both. “I have a plan.”

 

* * *

 

A sea breeze rustled in the scrub bushes, smelling of salt air, smoke, and something like charred meat. It had been worse closer to the village, where I had passed a flyblown pig’s carcass left to decompose away from the main road. Clearly the pirates had made themselves at home.

I had with me a cured leather bag, dangling from a rope of woven wire. It contained a handful of hot ashes provided by Ace. Heat emanated through the leather, rendering the bag too hot to touch for long.

I squeezed along between the bushes, thorns catching my skin and clothes. There was an easier path that led along the cliff at the side of the headland, but I was trying to stay out of sight. Little sacrifices had to be made for the sake of the mission, like the integrity of my clothes.

Damini and Ace had stayed near the burning village. I was on my own.

Surf boomed, echoing somewhere beneath my feet. Seagulls circled in the sky above. Breathing hard, I reached the end of the headland, looking over the edge and down a good thirty metres of perpendicular cliff. At the bottom, waves crashed against mussel-encrusted boulders. My pulse thumped inside my ears. Surely there was a better way down than this?

The answer came to me after a moment. I turned and picked my way along the edge of the cliff, searching for the path the pirates had used. The risk would have to be taken.

I came to a set of weatherworn stairs carved into the solid rock. They curved down along the side of the headland, disappearing into an open sea cave near the mainland. The rumbling echoes of striking waves bounced out across the cove. I swallowed my nerves and took a first step down the staircase, keeping one eye out for foes and the other on the narrow path.

At the bottom of the steps, the track rose over a pile of boulders and disappeared into a wide, high-roofed cavern running right through the headland. At the other end of the cave, the sun shone through a wide opening in the rock with seraphic intensity, but this side of the headland lingered deep in shadow. Waves rolled up through the cave, white spume pushing across damp yellow sand.

Across the beach, three large longboats had been pulled up above the high-tide mark. All three carried the same pirate mark as the big ship off the coast.

Dangling my fire bag from my little finger, I looked around for anything I could use as fuel. There were no bushes down here, not even dry flotsam on the beach. I spotted a few grasses growing at the very highest parts of the beach, out of reach of even any storm. Turning back to the sea, I discovered the charred hulks of three larger boats -- fishing vessels by the look of them -- lying in the shallows.

Poetic justice, I decided.

There was an old sack in the bow of one of the longboats. I gave it an experimental prod, and found it was stiff and dry. Fuel, perhaps? I picked it up, testing the fabric. It was in surprisingly good condition: no holes, no tears. I ripped it in half along the seam, poured some of my coals into the bottom and set the smouldering parcel down in the stern of the boat. It took a nervous while for the fabric to start burning; I spent it wondering whether or not this plan of Ace’s would work.

Eventually, it did. As the rough hessian caught alight, I moved onto the next boat, using up the rest of the sack.

Then I stood, hands on my hips, and stared pensively at the third boat. I had no tinder to get another fire going. Glancing back up at the clifftop, I wondered why I hadn’t stopped to collect a dead branch or two. Hindsight is perfect, but absolutely useless.

Clattered footsteps sounded sharply on the rock. I froze as a flicker of movement at the bottom of the cliff caught my attention.

“Who the hell’re you?”

A pirate had come down the cliff while I hadn’t been looking. Firelight glinted in sunken, yellowed eyes; his skin had a sallow cast to it, and his hair was shot through with grey. He wore ragged trousers and an open-collared grey shirt, and there was a pistol tucked into the sash at his waist.

His mouth opened and shut once in drunken disbelief. Then he yelled at the top of his lungs, “Fire!!” and dashed across the beach towards the boats.

I reacted instinctively, intercepting him halfway and kicking his legs out from underneath him. He went down heavily, letting out a surprised yell. I stamped hard on his back, driving my knee into his ribs and pinning him face-down against the sand. He struggled, scrabbling for the gun at his waist, but I got there first.

“Hey! You bastard, the hell’re ya doin’ ta Salter!” Another shout caught my attention -- another pirate, a woman, running with difficulty through the loose sand at the bottom of the path. A pair of young men appeared through the opening of the cave behind her.

The man underneath me struggled to raise his head out of the sand. “Rany! Get this crazy bitch offa me!”

I toyed with the catches on the gun for a moment, and levelled it at the man’s head. He went very quiet and still.

I pulled the trigger.

The gun went off with a sharp bang. The recoil kicked back against my arm and I nearly dropped the damn thing. Little spots of blood spattered against my face.

“Ya _bitch_!” the woman shrieked, pulling out her own pistol. “I’ll teach ya ta mess wi’ th’ Rockhelm Pirates!” Her gun spat sparks.

I braced my knee against the sand and aimed the pistol again, a vivid sort of serenity rolling through my muscles. The bullet went wide, so I readjusted and shot a third time. She stumbled forward, trying to aim through a grimace of pain. I lunged to my feet and her gun gave a sharp report. Something thumped against my calf, a thrown rock

I closed the gap between us, cocked my fist and punched her in the jaw. Her head snapped to the side and she stumbled backwards. I kicked her in the gut, and this time she went down with an agonised shriek. I dispatched her in the same way I had the other man -- with a bullet to the head.

The two younger men hadn't made it to the beach. Both turned on their heels and scrambled off up the cliff as fast as they could go, trying to elbow each other out of the way. I shot at one, but missed. When I pulled the trigger again, nothing happened. The gun had run out of bullets.

A flare of orange blossomed from around the opening of the seacave. The two pirates barely had time to slow down before they were enveloped by a huge swathe of flames.

Portgas D. Ace came swaggering down the stairway, grinning as the flames melted back into his body.

“Nice little setup they've got down here, isn't it. I thought I should come and check on you, see how you were going,” he said, his gaze flicking from me to the boats to the two dead pirates sprawled on the sand. “Sheesh, I guess I shouldn’t have bothered. You’re a stone-cold killer, ma’am.”

I flexed my fingers, dropping the now-useless pistol at my feet. “That was scary.” I cast my gaze down at myself, and my lip curled in disgust. There was blood all over my chest and one leg, suspicious flecks of flesh among the red. “I need a bath.”

“Go duck yourself in the ocean,” Ace chuckled, prodding the dead woman with his booted foot. “I’m surprised you can speak so casually with these two lying in front of you.”

I blinked. “Why wouldn’t I”

“Human moral, empathy; that sort of thing. Shock, maybe.” The pitch seal in the longboats had caught fire, burning merrily in two out of the three. Ace pointed at the third, the one I hadn’t managed to light, and a lance of yellow flames skewered the craft right through. “Seriously, go wash some of that shit off, or Damini’s going to scream.”

Obediently heading toward the tide pools at the dark end of the cave, I knelt in the sand and splashed handfuls of salt water over the bloody patches. It wasn't a perfect solution, but on the bright side I no longer looked like a ritual sacrifice.

Rejoining Ace, I stripped my bloodstained jacket off and tied the arms around my waist. “I'm pretty sure I've fired a gun and fought before. That felt familiar.”

He gave me a quick, knowing look over his shoulder. “There's one more clue for you. You’re a bit chattier when Damini isn’t around, aren’t you?”

I shrugged, ambivalent. When Damini talked, I felt like I didn’t need to. When she wasn’t present, I had to say everything for myself. I wasn’t sure which option I preferred yet.

“Where is she, anyway?” Last time I’d seen her, she had been following Ace into the village with a distinctly anxious look on her face.

It never once struck me that I should have been feeling a lot less composed than I was, considering someone had just tried to kill me. The fact that I had killed them instead barely registered. Truth be told, the memory of the old pirate’s face was already fading from my mind.

Ace leapt up onto the cliffside stairway. “She's hanging out in a safe place with a couple of terrified kids. We couldn’t spirit away any more of the villagers than that; the pirates are apparently running head counts to make sure no-one runs off to the authorities.”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, ducking around a spur of weatherbeaten granite.. Ace shrugged, tiny orange flames licking around his shoulders.

“I figure I’ll just go in there and cause a bit of a scene. That usually works. You and Damini can see if you can't get the villagers out of the way in case I need to get really serious, but I doubt it.”

“Into the hills is probably the best bet,” I said, thinking aloud. “You've got quite a range on those flames.”

Ace laughed. “Solid idea. You’d make a good pirate.”

“You think?” I glanced back at the sea cave, looming like a giant mouth beneath the headland.

“Oh, sure,” Ace said. He held up three fingers and flashed them back over his shoulder. “See, there are three things that make a great pirate. Number one is luck, number two is survival skills, and number three is a certain sense of… let's call it style. You’ve got the first two, from what I’ve seen. You just have to work on the third.”

He spoke like he was smiling, an enthusiastic lilt in his speech. “Are you serious?” I asked.

Ace shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Look at the Yonkou, or even most of the Shichibukai. Pops, Red-Hair -- even Big Mom, though her style is mostly ‘fucking monster’.”

We reached the top of the cliff, heading back toward the village at the foot of the hills. After the shade in the seacave, the heat of the sun struck like a physical blow.

Ace gestured toward a barely-visible path through the scrub. “Damini’s off through there. Keep going until you get to the big rock. If you find more pirates, you've gone too far.”

He patted me on the shoulder, more of an open-handed slap, and disappeared off along the clifftop. 

I went a little way into the smaller path, edging between bushes covered in three-inch, needle-sharp thorns. The fire in the village had almost burned itself out, and the column of smoke rising into the sky was quickly dissipating. Surrounded by identically dry, viciously spiny bushes, I soon lost the track I was meant to be following.

The sea wind shifted, bringing the stench of putrefying flesh to my nose. The pig carcass I'd noted earlier, no doubt. I must have missed Damini among the scrub.

I spotted a gap between bushes and took it. Voices reached my ears, then were torn away by the sea breeze. I turned a sharp corner and without warning stumbled into a wide clearing surrounding the village.

Perhaps a hundred people ranged around the edges of the clearing, both pirates and villagers. It was easy to tell who was what—the villagers wore the brightly coloured Carolingen robes, while the pirates were dressed to a man in ragged cotton shirts and metal helmets. Though they were outnumbered at least two to one, the pirates were the clear masters. At the centre of the gathering, Ace stood, facing a huge bearded man who sat on a throne made out of empty crates.

The man on the throne glanced my way, and grinned. “You brought us a whore? That's nice of you.” he said.

Ace turned, eyes narrowing. His lips moved -- swearing, probably. I shared the sentiment.

Two pirates split off from the group, approaching me one from each side. One waved a sword and leered, while the other lazily brandished a rusting pistol. “Be good, girly, and we won’t hurt you,” the man with the sword wheedled, cocking his head to one side. “Too much, at least.”

I eyeballed the approaching men, weighing my options. That sword looked dangerous, and besides which, I’d just beaten a man with a gun.

I lunged towards the man with the pistol, grabbed him by the gun arm and opposite shoulder and tipped him over my hip with all my might. He slammed into the man with the sword, who'd thought to come up behind me. Gun Man screamed, Sword Man swore. I spun, kicked Gun Man in the ribs and felt something give beneath the blow. The gun dropped to the ground. I ducked low and snatched it up, firing twice. My aim was not great, but at point blank range, it didn't have to be. Gun Man screamed again, and Sword Man dropped without a word, a wound like a third eye opened in his forehead.

An angry silence was shattered by the sound of clapping. Ace grinned lopsidedly at me, shaking his head. He was the one applauding.

“Bravo, Loki! Not bad at all!” He turned back to the man on the throne—the captain of the crew, I guessed—smiling an insouciant smile. “My friend there might look like a girl who's good for some fun, but right now she's got a body count higher than mine. You might wanna, uh, be more polite about her. Might save your life.”

I took the opportunity to move further into the open, closer to the safety Ace represented. "Sorry," I told him, under my breath. "I got lost."

Ace gave me a quick, measuring look. "All good. Stick close; I'm about to read this guy the riot act."

“So I hear,” the captain roared, laughing, "and yet you ain't said nothing yet! What’s your problem, pipsqueak? Your mommy took your dummy away too soon?”

Ace crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing. Several of the gathered pirates surreptitiously stepped back.

"This island belong to Whitebeard. You're trespassing."

The captain snorted. “Naw, I think you’re the one who’s trespassing, kiddo. What are you, seventeen? I’ll admit you got style—and don’t get me wrong, I like a kid with style—but you and your bitch better quit playin’ and get outta here before the real pirates decide to teach ya a lesson.”

“Hah,” Ace chuckled mirthlessly. “You don’t recognise me? I’d say that was a surprise, only you’ve already proven you don’t have the brains of a donkey’s arse.”

“Mouthy kid, aren’t ya?” The smile disappeared from the captain’s face faster than a rabbit down a hole. He rose from his throne, cracking his knuckles. “Hey boys, do me a favour and make sure they can’t get away. I’m gonna enjoy this.”

“Well, you better get whatever you’re planning over with quickly.” Ace grinned as the crew circled us. “Whitebeard is my captain, and he’s given me the order to deal with all crews trespassing on his territory.”

“That old relic can go rot for all I care,” the captain shot back, drawing a pair of two-handed swords. “This is the new age of pirates! The oceans of the world belong ta whoever’s strong enough to take ‘em!”

Ace closed his eyes, cupped his hands in front of his chest. The charged aura in the air around him changed, becoming more focused— _hotter_.

"That's true." He opened his eyes. “But there’s one thing you’ve forgotten to take into account.”

His hands flickered, melting into shapeless fire again. It leapt outwards at a slashed gesture, arcing between himself and the captain. Both men disappeared in a towering inferno.

When the fire died away, Ace alone was left standing on the open ground. Silent and dumbstruck, the remaining pirates stared at the patch of blackened earth where their captain had stood mere seconds ago.

"The oceans belong to whoever can take them, sure enough.” Ace told the empty air. “Right now, that'd be _me_."

As one, the assembled pirates fled.

Ace stepped back to where I stood for a moment, grabbing my shoulder. “Look after the villagers, will you? I’ll deal with this lot.”

I nodded. "Will do."

The villagers had taken shelter between their huts as the pirates ran. Two brave men stepped out to face me, one old and grey-bearded, the other closer to my age. The elder said something, but in a language I did not recognise.

I thought quickly, tucked the flintlock I'd taken from Gun Man in my jacket, and held up my empty hands, palms facing the sky. "I'm not going to hurt you," I said, hoping someone spoke the language.

Nobody replied, but the elder looked from my gun to my hands and gave a slow, cautious nod. Hopefully he'd gotten the message.

“Loki, is that you?”

I glanced back over my shoulder. Damini emerged from the scrub at the edge of the village. Two little girls, both of them not much older than toddlers, huddled together behind her legs. Damini’s gaze took in the dead men in the clearing, the patch of charcoal where Ace had incinerated the pirate captain, and rose fearfully to me.

“Hi,” I said, waving. “It’s definitely me.”

She exhaled hugely. “Good. I saw the fire, and then all these pirates running through the scrub, and I don’t know what’s happening and I hate it.”

I watched as Damini ushered the little girls across the dead grass, into the arms of their mothers. “Ace is happening, I think." 

“Knowing his reputation, I’m not surprised,” Damini joined me, rearranging her scarf over her shoulders. “Meeting him in real life has been an education.”

I nodded my agreement. “It’s been an interesting day.”

Damini snorted. “’Interesting’ is not the word I would use. Terrifying, yes, and maybe enlightening as well. Speaking of which, you have blood on your clothes.”

“Not mine,” I said quickly. “Apparently I can fight.”

“Well, that’s one less thing to worry about,” Damini said, dropping the subject. She turned to the men who had approached me, said something in the same smooth, slightly nasal language. The elder replied with a burst of furious speech. 

Damini’s eyes widened. “They must be very isolated out here. Hair like sun and skin like bones, he said. He thinks you must be an angel of death.”

I looked at my hands, knuckles smeared with blood. “I don’t feel very angelic right now.”

Damini laughed for real that time, bracing her hands on her knees and closing her eyes. “In our oldest legends, the servants of the gods have either yellow or silver hair, like the sun and moon,” she explained, pointing up at my blonde ponytail. “Sea angels have blue skin; servants of the sun have yellow, and tenders of plants have green. The servants of death have pale skin, like bones left out in the sun. We the Carolingen people dwell on land; we therefore have brown and black skin, like the fertile earth. It’s an old legend -- my mother used to sing it to me when I was a child.”

Grass crackled underfoot. Ace rounded the side of a mud-brick hut, and the villagers shifted, shrinking into the shadows.

“I think I’ve got them all,” he said, running his fingers through his tousled black hair. “It’s hard to tell how many there were.”

“You killed them all?” Damini asked, biting her lip.

Ace frowned down at her. “No mercy,” he explained flatly. “We can’t afford it in the pirate world. They touch what's ours, they get their asses handed to them. It's the bargain we all make when we fly the black flag.”

Damini nodded, but the look in her eyes was still troubled. “Lahaiyla might have been right about me,” she sighed, turning back to me. “I have underestimated this world.”

Ace suddenly looked hunted. He opened his mouth to say something, but Damini shook her head. She walked over to sit against a half-destroyed wall—and a wild-eyed man  wearing a heavy metal helmet leapt out of nowhere, grabbing her by the hair and pressing a rusty old knife against her neck.

Even before Ace and I had begun to move, Damini reacted. She slipped her forearm between herself and the man’s knife hand, kicked backward. Her heel struck him just below the kneecap. He stumbled, groaning. She grabbed his wrist, ducked under and out of his grasp, then kicked him again. This time she landed a solid blow to his ribs.

By that time Ace had made his move. He punched the pirate with a furious yell, sending him flying into the side of a hut with enough force to crack the mud brick wall. I pounced on him in turn, pressing a knee to his chest. He gurgled, thrashing. I pressed the muzzle of my gun right between his eyes, but it was Damini who leaned down and pulled the trigger.

A deadly silence filled the space left by the sound of the shot.

Damini dragged her eyes away from the dead pirate. “I guess you missed one,” she told Ace, voice wobbling. Tears streaked down her face. She scrubbed viciously at her eyes with the hem of her robes. “Don’t look at me.”

Ace gave me a look, frozen in place. _Help_ , said his eyes, clear as day. I returned the look, still perched on the dead man's chest. 

The mothers of the little girls came to Damini's rescue. They draped their scarves over her shoulders, speaking gently in their local language, and ushered her away. Gradually, the Carolingens dispersed.

Ace sighed, stuck a hand out in my general direction. I stared at it for a long moment, then realised he was offering me a hand up.

"Looks like we're on cleanup duty," he said, and a flash of his irrepressible smile returned. "You ready to earn your keep, Loki?"

 

* * *

 

We arrived in Lokashiri almost two full days later, covered in dust and ready for the long walk to be over.

It was early evening as we trudged through the great gate between the outlying districts and the city centre, and the golden sunset bathed the city in soft, warm light. Lokashiri was not like Tusanto, where everything was built in desert mud-brick. Here, buildings were cool grey stone, chiselled into worn and weathered blocks, and complex wooden structures with high arched roofs and eaves as long as my arm. The city seemed colder, somehow.

Memory flashed in the depths of my mind. I dove after it, but the tang of recognition faded before I could catch it.

Ace led the way along the main road, heading purposefully downhill. Most of the traffic on the road was going the same way—toward the ports. "I can't wait to see the guys," he said, grinning like an overenthused puppy. "Can't wait to get back out to sea! I hope Teach hasn't eaten any of my leftovers."

"Who's Teach?" I asked. Caught up in the whirlwind of adventure that followed Ace wherever he went, I hadn't yet had the chance to wonder what sort of a crew produced a pirate like Portgas D. Ace in the first place.

“He’s in the second division,” Ace explained, snatching a toothpick from a street food stall on the side of the road. A cry went up, but faded quickly as the vendors found their menu unmolested. Ace stuck the toothpick between his lips, playing with it as he continued. “Looks like a fat dumb bastard, but actually he’s pretty fun. Only person I ever lost an eating contest to, although I'm pretty sure that was because we were eating raspberry pie. He’s a great man for his pie, is Teach.”

He grinned at Damini and I from heavy-lidded eyes. “Actually, speaking of my nakama I’d been meaning to ask you guys something. How about joining the Whitebeard Pirates?”

Damini gave him the flattest of flat stares, caught between incredulity and self-doubt. The fight with the Rockhelm Pirates had shaken her badly. “Are you serious?”

Ace nodded, sucking the toothpick into his cheek. “Perfectly serious. You both can fight, and Damini, you said you were training to be a navigator, didn’t you? The first division’s navigator wants an apprentice, but she has a list of requirements about as long as my arm. I don't think she'd turn away someone as smart as you.”

"I have basic navigation and cartography skills, but the College didn't exactly train me for that purpose." Damini sucked in a disbelieving breath. "I know who the first division's navigator is. She's a  _legend_." 

“I’ll join,” I said, cutting Damini off mid-squeak. “If your captain doesn't mind.”

“What about looking for your memories?” Damini turned to me, wide-eyed and serious.

I shrugged. “I can do that at the same time. This way I’ll probably get to more out-of-the-way places.” Thinking for a moment, I added something that had been gnawing away at my thoughts for the last couple of days. “I also want to know where I learned to kill.”

“You will definitely figure that out better if you come with us rather than the Marines,” Ace mused. “So, Damini?”

Damini sighed. A spark lit in her black eyes. “I want to stay with Loki, wherever she goes.”

Ace grinned. “Well, now you can stay with me as well. Aren’t you happy?”

Damini wrapped her scarf around her face and tossed another toothpick at him. Ace caught it, deposited it in my bemused hands. “On second thoughts, Loki’s welcome to you," he said.

I listened to them bicker, gentle satisfaction warming my heart. The fact that Damini was arguing with Ace again was a good sign—it meant that she was recovering from her shock.

We moved onward, through the evening shoppers. 

Lokashiri's midtown district sprawled across several shallow hills. The harbour sat at the fore, dark sea before a horizon that glowed with retreating daylight. Ships rested at anchor, lit by myriad lamplights, and stars emerged from the night sky overhead. Dark clouds built up in the north, an oncoming storm.

Gazing down into the harbour, I spotted the pale bulk of a ship several times larger than any other. Ace’s description of the Moby Dick came to mind. Lamps flickered all over the deck, and if I strained my eyes, I could pick out a few dark shapes that must have been people -- Ace's crewmates.

Ace picked that moment to steal an entire pizza from a street food stand. The peaceful moment dissolved into shouts and screams.

He shoved the pizza into his mouth, slung Damini over his shoulder, and ran from the scene of the crime. I chased after him, followed by what felt like half of Lokashiri. The irate vendors pursued us almost to the port, by which time my windpipe tasted of blood and my legs had turned to jelly, but at least I'd more or less kept up with Ace. Damini's shrieking had been easy to follow, even when I lost sight of the damn thieving pirate.

At the dock below the Moby Dick, I stumbled to a halt behind Ace and braced my hands on my thighs, gasping for air. Damini had stopped screaming by this point; she wobbled as Ace put her down, then turned on her heel and punched him as hard as she could muster.

"Ow," Ace said, more out of reflex than pain. Damini grabbed her knuckles, grimacing. Ace was composed of just about one hundred percent muscle; punching him was like punching a brick wall. 

He gave us both a friendly pat, then shoved the last slice of pizza into his mouth and called up to the docked ship through a half-chewed mouthful. "Hey, Pops! Guys! I'm back!"

Ace didn't even bother with the ladder that had been leant against the side of the Moby Dick. He jumped instead, right up to the railings on the side of the ship. He balanced there for a moment, crouching with his arms propped up on his knees, and called out again. "I brought a couple new friends! Can they stay, Pops?"

A pair of heads appeared over the railing, looking down at myself and Damini. "We may as well meet them," someone said. Ace hopped off the rail, beckoning us to join him up on the deck.

"Here's to the Whitebeard Pirates," Damini muttered, glancing over at me. She took hold of the ladder, took a deep breath, and scuttled upwards with agility that no longer surprised me.

I cast a wary look down at the water that lapped against the side of the ship, and followed.

The open deck of the Moby Dick was lit with dozens of lamps, the shadows of furled sails hanging from the spars overhead like heavy-looking clouds. It was crowded with pirates of all shapes and sizes. They lounged against the railings and the masts, sitting on crates and barrels and piles of rope here and there. A group crowded around Ace, welcoming him back with laughter and raucous banter. Still others hung back, watching Damini and I.

A lowered area like an amphitheatre curved around in front of the third mast, widening to a capital-D shape in front of the raised stern cabins.  Placed against the mast was a gigantic chair—more like a throne, really—in which a real giant of a man sat, clad in simple white pants and a heavy collared cloak. He held a tankard the size of a barrel in his massive hand.

Damini reappeared by my side. "There goes Whitebeard," she whispered.

The strongest man in the world surveyed us with sharp golden eyes.

He wore a black bandanna on his head, and a massive white mustache shaped like an upturned crescent perched on his upper lip. Suddenly I saw where Ace’s tattoo had gotten its mustachios from. His jaw was broad and prominent, his brows heavy and brooding. He was easily twice my height—maybe taller—and probably three or four times wider. An assortment of old scars crisscrossed his broad, heavily muscled chest, framed by the braided edges of the longcoat that rested across his shoulders, covering his upper arms. There was a palpable aura of command around him: _this_ man was in charge, beyond all doubt.

And there was something beneath his aura of authority, too. I felt it pressing down, not uncomfortably, but as a constant watchful presence. It sent a shiver up my spine, this weight. It reminded me of the weight in the clearing with Ace, when the Rockhelm captain had challenged him -- but Whitebeard was older and stronger, and somehow kinder too.

Whitebeard lifted a hand in greeting. "Welcome back, Ace." His voice was deep, harsh and guttural as if he'd taken a knife to the gullet in some long-ago fight. "We heard the screams coming up the road and figured it was you."

Ace cackled, snatching a chicken drumstick from an unwary pirate and flopping down on the deck in front of Whitebeard. "You were wrong about the number of crews hanging around, Pops. I found the two you told me about, and then there was a third, couple days ago." He took a massive bite out of the drumstick, and jabbed the end at Damini and I. "I found these two on the road from Tusanto. Well, they found me, I mean."

“Narcoleptic fit?” A tall blonde man sitting perched on the railing at the top of the amphitheatre crossed his arms across his branded chest. “You've got some luck, kid.”

Ace scowled up at him, tearing another bite off his drumstick. “Shu’ up, Marco,” he grumbled through a full mouth. “It was a hot afternoon! I couldn’t help it! Anyway, I’d heard that there had been some bandits working the road lately, so being the nice person that I am, I offered to stick with them until we got to Lokashiri.”

“Yeah, we all know you’re a total stud, Ace,” someone called out, provoking a flood of chuckles from the assembled pirates. “You just couldn’t resist, could you?”

“Someday I’ll find out who said that, and then you’ll all be sorry!” Ace picked the last of the meat from the drumstick and lobbed it in the direction of the unseen heckler. “Ignore these guys,” he told Damini and I, rolling his eyes. “They’re just jealous of my good looks.”

"What good looks?" asked a young man with a scarf tied across the lower half of his face. "You face makes babies cry."

Ace flipped his middle finger at the speaker. “So it was quiet and boring for about an afternoon, and then the next morning we came across that third lot of pirates. It looked like they’d picked a village to leech off, so that explains why Haruta hadn't heard about them. I walked up to their captain, introduced myself and everything, but he didn’t seem so interested in what I had to say.”

“Kaboom time,” another man chuckled.

Ace snickered. "Yeah, Kaboom time. I’d sent Loki–“ he jabbed a finger at me—“ to burn their landing boats, so they couldn’t get away over the sea.” He gave his audience a resigned sigh. “I should've let at least one get away; he could've told the story for me.”

Whitebeard’s hawklike gaze shifted from Ace, settling on Damini and I. “So you’ve delivered them to Lokashiri,” he began, stabbing one giant finger at us. “What are you planning to do with them now?”

Out the corner of my eye, Damini swallowed nervously.

Ace grinned ingenuously up at Whitebeard. “Well, see, they ended up being more useful that I was expecting. Loki has some sort of amnesia. She can’t remember anything that happened before about… was it two weeks? Two weeks ago.” Ace glanced at me for confirmation. “But she can fight like someone’s trained her.”

“A pirate someone, you’re thinking,” Whitebeard rumbled, his yellow glare flicking across to me. Ace nodded.

“I think so, yeah. So I figured, maybe she’s looking in the wrong world. Maybe _we're_ the ones who have the memories she’s looking for. And since we all know I’m a nice person, I told her that maybe she’d be better off looking as a pirate rather than a civilian.”

It was discomfiting, having the attention of so many people fixed on me all at once. Some felt sympathetic, others evaluating and suspicious. Whitebeard himself merely watched me from his chair, lamplight glinting in his eyes.

“You have nothing, do you?” he asked, setting aside his tankard. 

“I have a book,” I replied, its weight in the knapsack on my back comforting. “And I have my clothes. That’s something.”

Whitebeard raised a solitary eyebrow. Suddenly a rattling chuckle burst out through the giant man’s lips.

“So it is!” he laughed. Raising his tankard to his mouth, he took a deep swig; sake sloshed over the rim and down his chest. “You can fight, Ace says, and that’s enough for me. I won’t turn away any girl who comes to me for help—but there’s a proviso, and it’s that I don’t help anyone who won’t help themselves first. Understand that, blondie?”

I nodded, sweat beading on my forehead. The presence in the air had for a moment become almost unbearable. It vanished when Whitebeard laughed, but the memory lingered.

“It sounds fair enough to me.”  

Whitebeard harrumphed, settling back in his oversized chair again. “Good. So -- what about this other one, Ace?”

Damini's back straightened, and she nervously licked her lips.

Ace lounged back, bracing himself against the deck with one hand while he gestured airily with the other. “Her name’s Damini, and apparently she’s been hanging around with Loki forever—”

“For the last two weeks!” Damini burst out, going red beneath her charcoal skin as she found herself the center of attention. “My landlady found her in Tusanto. I've been helping her out, teaching her about the world.”

“I see,” Whitebeard rumbled. “Carry on, Ace.”

Ace continued obediently. "You know how Grim—where is she, anyway?—how she’s been rattling on about finding a decent apprentice lately? Damini’s smart. We could try her.”

“Grim wants someone with an education,” the man on the railing—Marco, or so Ace had called him—put in. Ace paused, his eyes darting from side to side, but Damini nodded resolutely.

“I’ve spent the last six years at the College of Tusanto,” she said, tucking her clenched hands inside her sleeves. "I studied a broad course of Geography, Meteorology, and Economics with some focus on commercial navigation and international trade."

Whitebeard stared into his tankard for a moment, then emptied what remained of the sake in one monstrous gulp. “Now that’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard all day. Bit overqualified to be a simple navigator, don’t you think?” 

“I don’t care!" Damini replied, stung into boldness. "I want to learn about the world, and I decided a long time that navigation is probably the best way to do it.”

“Then why not go to the Marines? They’d be a bit safer, don’t you think?” There was a glint in Whitebeard’s eye and a cast to his grin that I half-suspected was teasing.

“I’ve got a lot of cousins in the Marines," Damini countered. "I know from them that they don’t often get to travel much beyond the islands they’re posted to. Civilian travellers—and pirates—are freer.”

She cocked her head to the side, eyes downcast. “And besides which, it’s a little late to be asking me that. Three days ago I was—momentarily, at least—a hostage. I’ve been thinking since then, and I’m not going to turn tail and run when I haven’t even gotten off the island yet.”

Whitebeard gestured sharply at the dark ocean with his tankard. “It’ll be a lot more difficult to run once you’re out on the high seas.”

“Then, with all due respect, it’s a good thing I don’t plan to run,” Damini stated. There was a beat of silence -- and then she buried her face in the ends of her sleeves, her wells of bravery run dry.

The strongest man in the world looked down at her, and chuckled.

“Not bad. Not bad at all, tiddler. I’ve just got one last question for you—if you’ve been kicking around the College for as long as you say you have, did you find the Devil Fruit encyclopedia?”

Damini dropped her hands, eyes round and startled. “How do you know about that?”

Whitebeard snorted. “Half the world knows there’s one somewhere in Carolinge, and where else should a rare book be kept but in a university? Knew a guy once who had studied at the College, would've been about fifty years ago. Ansari… I forget his name.” He tipped his head back, staring pensively into the middle distance.

Ace blinked up at his captain, mischief glittering in his eyes. “You having a senior moment there, Pops?”

“Insolent pup!” Whitebeard barked, without real rancour. “You get to my age, Portgas, and you’ll have earned a senior moment or two!”

The crew chuckled, conversation breaking out in places. Whitebeard surveyed the assembled pirates. He gave them a few moments to converse, then got to his feet. The network of IV lines and medical instruments swayed across his broad chest like necklaces.

“So, my sons,” he began, gesturing towards Damini and I with his empty tankard. “Our youngest brother has brought home some strays. You all know Ace; you trust his judgement, so what would you have happen to these two?”

“Honestly, we really could use someone to stop Grim’s complaining,” Marco put in from his precarious perch up on the railings. “She won’t turn her nose up in a hurry at someone with a College education.”

There were a few murmurs of assent from the assembled pirates. “I’m all good with more girls!” someone called out of the crowd, triggering laughter.

A tall bronze-skinned man rose to his feet, giving Damini a cursory look and myself a much sharper, colder gaze as he approached Whitebeard. Words were said, quieter than I could hear for sure. Whitebeard grinned, shook his head, and replied in a low rumble, nodding at the rest of the crew. The man’s lips set in a resigned scowl. He nodded once and headed up the amphitheatre, leaning against the railings beside Marco. Neither man smiled in the lamplight. Marco’s fine-boned features rested in bland acceptance, while the darker-skinned man glared out from under a thick black fringe.

A hand came down on my shoulder with startling force. Ace leaned against my shoulder, grinning and breathing teriyaki chicken all over me. “Looks like you're staying, blondie!”

Whitebeard approached, seeming for all the world like a tree who'd gotten up and decided to go for a walk. A couple of younger, much smaller men accompanied him, both grinning. He gave me a short nod; perhaps of approval, I couldn't tell. His yellow eyes glittered, and his presence hung in the air like smoke.

“It takes us a while to do anything, but on the bright side we never go back on a decision,” he said at last, lips twitching in a wry grin. “Welcome to the crew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and added a little bit from the beginning of this chapter to the end of the last chapter in an effort to even up the word counts. This one is still about 8.5k words, but that's still better than 10k. :v


	5. now raise your hands up

_\- now raise your hands up -_

...

I woke with the sun next morning.

The Moby Dick had a separate cabin for the women of the first and second divisions, and it was into this cabin that Damini and I had been unceremoniously bundled as the party wound down last night.

The impromptu slumber party hadn't kept me awake for long. I slept soundly amid hushed voices and creaking timbers, and woke to dawn creeping through the single porthole in the hull wall.

i slipped gingerly out of my hammock, tugging my ponytail loose as I headed for the deck. Outside, seagulls circled in the sky beneath sparse pink clouds. There was a fresh breeze, the sails rippling gently, and waves lapped around the hulls of the ships in the harbour. For the moment, the Lokashiri docks were quiet.

The door that led below decks opened and shut behind me. I half-turned, eyeing the emerging figure.

Her name was Neroli -- I'd met her last night. She was a first-divisioner, a little shorter than myself with curly russet-coloured hair scraped back into two bunches at the nape of her neck. Her hazel eyes glinted with good humour underneath thick dark brows.

She met my eyes for a flash before turning to the harbour, taking in the pattern of waves on the water. "Looks like a good day for sailing, hey? Did you get the grand tour yesterday, or do I need to show you the way to the galley?"

"Ace pulled us all over the ship, but I don’t think I actually remember where anything is,” I admitted, dragging a hand through my hair. There was a small tender spot on the back of my skull where my ponytail had pressed against my pillow as I slept. I rubbed the spot with two fingertips, grimacing. “Should I get Damini?”

Neroli grinned, folded her wiry arms. "Nah, leave her to sleep in. She'll need to be well-rested if she's to deal with Grim later.”

“Okay.” I nodded, drifting across to the side of the ship. “I'm well awake right now. Is there anything I should do?”

Neroli laughed and linked her arm with mine. “Right now? Come have breakfast with me. Are you a natural early riser?”

“I'm not sure,” I said truthfully. “I do like being awake early.”

Neroli led me across the deck and into the upper deck behind the amphitheater. “Close enough,” she laughed. “Come on, galley’s this way.”

* * *

I spent the morning with Neroli at the stern of the great ship, helping to repair ropes.

Ace joined us about an hour before lunch. He and Neroli kept a running commentary on the crew’s activity, explaining to me what tasks were being worked on around me and how they ought to be done. As I didn't have a particular talent, they said, rigging duty was likely where I would end up.

"It's not so bad," Ace grinned, leaning back against the ship's railings. Coils of rope surrounded him. He sorted through the piles, separating repairable rope from scraps too badly damaged to be of use. "You get used to the work quickly. It's much easier than what Damini's probably having to do right now -- Grim's got about fifty years of navigational knowledge needing passed on."

"Between Ace and myself, there's only about nineteen years' worth," Neroli added with a teasing smirk. She’d occupied herself weaving together two longer sections of rope, the tip of her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration. "And it's just general sailing knowledge. Contrary to what most people think, there is more to being a pirate than fighting. Good sailors are harder to come by than good fighters on these seas."

"Not that we don't need the good fighters, of course, but we'd be sunk without knowing how to sail a ship." Ace nodded at Neroli. "On pirate ships and Marine ships, you've got two sorts of people: fighters like me, and sailors like Nero here. The sailors act like backup fighters during battle, and the fighters help out the sailors when they need it, but you can still see the difference between the two groups."

Neroli tossed one end of her rope to Ace. "Hold this a moment?" When Ace picked it up, she leaned back and hauled on it; Ace did the same on his end. The repair held. Neroli smiled, and tied off the line. "That's looking good. Loki, if you're interested in learning to sail, I can teach you what I know."

I considered the offer. "Sounds like it'd be a good idea."

Neroli grinned. "Course it is. I always wanted an apprentice, you know."

"You aren’t nearly old enough to look the part." Ace rested his chin on his knuckles and cast a pensive look at the cabin in the middle of the deck. "Grim, on the other hand. It'd be good to have another navigator around with that sort of skill."

I sat back, folding my wrists over my knees. "So Grim's good at navigation."

Both Ace and Neroli nodded. "She's better than good -– she's _brilliant_ ," Neroli told me. "There are stories about navigators like her—people who can predict Grand Line storms before they hit and read ocean currents like books, better than even the Sea Kings can. Malicia Grim is legendary here in the New World. The epithet on her bounty poster is ‘Storm Goddess’ for a reason."

“Although it’s about forty years out of date and doesn’t really suit her much anymore,” Ace cackled. “Storm Hag, maybe!”

Neroli flicked him with the soft end of a broken rope. “Say that in her presence and she won’t have to lift a finger to put you in the infirmary, boy.”

And Damini was studying with someone like that? Grim sounded nothing like her tales of the professors at Tusanto’s College. "Damini must be having fun."

Neroli snorted. "I think I'll wait and see what comes out of that door before I make a judgement on that," she replied, and took up several short lengths of a much thinner rope. "Now, Loki, watch this carefully. If you're gonna be my apprentice, the first thing you need to learn is knots."

* * *

Forget Damini – by the time the ship's bell rang out for lunchtime my brain was stuffed full of knots. Sailors in the past had obviously had too much time on their hands.

The bell rang for lunchtime, and Ace leapt to his feet and vanished before the reverberations had finished echoing across the deck. Neroli and I followed him at a much more sedate pace. My knees ached and a muscle in the back of my thigh threatened to cramp. I'd completely lost track of how long we'd been sitting cross-legged out in such hot sun.

Just as we passed the upper cabin, one of the doors sprang open. I caught a glimpse of walls plastered with oceanic charts and maps before Damini stepped out and closed the door behind her.

She was smiling more broadly than I'd seen before, her eyes reflecting the sunlight with an elated sparkle. Her gaze settled on me, and she raised an inkstained hand in greeting.

"Loki! Good morning! How are you doing?"

"Shouldn't we be asking you that?" Neroli said as I smiled in answer. "I see you’ve survived Grim. She hasn't taken any chunks out of you, has she?"

Damini grinned. "No, she's fine. She reminds me of the professors at the College -- except, of course, the professors weren't strong enough to put a dent in my head if I misbehaved."

Neroli grinned. "That's her, all right. She’s decided to take you on?"

"Yeah," Damini nodded enthusiastically, her hood slipping off the back of her head. Underneath it her hair was as messy and slept-in as mine; obviously Grim hadn’t given her time to do much more than throw her clothes on. "She says I have the basic knowledge already, so she's going straight into the advanced class. I feel like my brain is about to burst."

"That’s pretty high praise coming from Grim. I had to work with her once, and I learnt so much that day I swear it gave me a headache." As Neroli led the way into the galley, she looked around, and her grin turned wry. "Well, if you two want to stick with Ace for lunch, I guess this is where we part ways."

I scanned the crowd of pirates for a familiar face, and found him seated at a trestle near the kitchen beside a big man with a scrubby black beard and a bandanna on his head. Both stared unblinking into the closed buffet window: watching, waiting.

“You can’t sit with us?” Damini asked.

Neroli shook her head. "Nah, I'll stay outta the way. I've gotta talk to Keiko, and besides, watching Ace eat can be a little bit traumatising." She turned to me, rested her hand on my arm. “I’ll talk to Marco and Pops, and we’ll sort out a training schedule for you. Meet me here at breakfast tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it’s going to go.”

I nodded. Neroli smiled, squeezed my arm, then turned and vanished into the crowded galley.

"Traumatising?” echoed Damini. “Yes, I think I am familiar with that fact.”

She made a face and moved into the press of bodies, picking a path through to the otherwise-empty table at which Ace and his friend sat. I followed, squeezing through gaps Damini had fit through with ease and instinctively apologising to everyone in my path.

Ace spared us a glance as we sat down, raising a hand in greeting. “Hey, Teach, my new friends are here; you mind if they eat with us?”

The man—Teach—gave us a sharp look out of eyes red as the sky at sunset, then grinned and went back to staring at the kitchen. "Nah, so long as they don't steal my food. Mind you, they don't look like they eat much at all, so maybe you're planning to steal from them, eh? Zehahaha!"

“Not true!” Ace punched Teach’s shoulder. "Damini, Loki, this is Marshall D. Teach. He's in the second division, which means he’s an asshole."

Teach laughed his strange laugh again. “I’ll cop to that one! The blondie is Loki and the tiddler is Damini, right? I saw you both last night. Pleased to meet ya." Teach nodded toward the buffet window. "Reckon they'll bring out the food soon? I'm starving."

"I can feel my stomach trying to digest itself," Ace commiserated, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands. "It looks like they're nearly ready. Dammit, Destry, hurry up."

"Who's Destry?" Damini asked, taking a seat on the other side of the trestle table.  

Ace blinked, gaze cutting toward her. "Oh—he's in Second. One of their cooks. He usually eats with us, so you'll meet him once they're done in there." His attention snapped back to the kitchen, and he sat up ramrod straight as a pair of the cooks emerged.

Finally, the buffet window scrolled open, and plates piled high with food emerged on wheeled tables. One of the cooks rang a little bell that hung on the wall. This, it seemed, was Ace’s cue. He and Teach rocketed up out of their chairs, the big man just as athletic as Ace, and raced for the buffet.

"And there they go," came a muttered voice from behind me. "I hope we've got enough of the pie out."

I turned away from the spectacle at the buffet, examining the newcomer.He was tall, probably of a height with Ace, with sunglasses perched on his forehead over warm brown eyes and a wicked mouth. His curly orange hair faded to pale pink at the tip of a short ponytail, contrasting horribly with the virulent purple shirt he wore.

The man took one of the free chairs from our table and sat, switching his attention to myself and Damini. "I saw you two last night, so no need to introduce yourselves. I'm Destry, second division head cook." He smiled lightly at us. "I trust those two gluttons haven't scared you off?"

Ace returned, having more or less swept an armful of food onto his outsize plate. “Oi,” he said, scowling through a mouthful of squid, “you're not poisoning my friends against me again, right, Destry? I'll have to whack you if you say yes."

"Well, that's a real incentive to tell the truth," Destry snarked back. "The food good?"

Ace's mood did a complete one-eighty turn. "It's great!" he exclaimed, and, proving his point, he began to shovel food into his mouth at an amazing rate.

Damini and I went to collect our own food as Teach returned and the press around the food died down somewhat. I reached through the crowd to the nearest fish dish, grabbing a bread roll to soak up the juices and a share of some fresh salad with croutons and a mild cheese I remembered trying at Lahaiyla’s place.

When I returned, we'd been joined by another man. I recognised Marco, the blonde fence-sitter from last night. He sat hunched over his own reasonably portioned plate, defending his food from the marauding Ace.

Marco been one of the three people pointed out to me as someone to go to for help when all else failed. As the first-division commander, he was Whitebeard’s unofficial second-in-command.

Ace paused in his attempts to steal Marco's food for a moment as I sat down in the empty chair on the commander's other side. "What've you got there, Loki?" His hand snaked out towards my plate. There was a flash of movement and a fork appeared, tines buried in the wooden tabletop where Ace’s hand had hovered a fraction of a second ago.

Marco let go of the fork. "This is why none of the newbies you invite here ever stay for long, Ace." He gazed at the freckled miscreant out of lazy, half-lidded blue eyes, radiating unflappable calm. "If you've eaten your food already, you'll just have to wait until everyone else has had their own. You know the drill."

Ace sank back in his seat and pouted. "I was just curious."

"Curious about what?" Damini returned, taking the last empty seat between Destry and Teach. Ace's face lit up; he reached for her plate, having apparently not learned his lesson. Damini's hand moved quick as lightning. Ace hissed and retreated, nursing bruised pride and fingers.

Teach laughed, somehow avoiding spraying his current mouthful of pie all over the table. "Zehahaha! Where'd you learn how to do that?"

"I have hungry little brothers," Damini turned eyes brimming with resignation on the rest of us, and stuffed a chicken drumstick into her mouth. “Looks like I haven’t escaped them.”

"You'll have to teach this one how to do that," the cook grinned, jabbing his thumb in my direction. "Otherwise Ace'll never leave her alone."

Damini saluted, drumstick and all. "Loki, your dinner will survive unmolested once I'm finished with you."

"That sounds like a challenge to me," Ace muttered mutinously. “I’m just _hungry,_ guys.”

“You’re a stomach with legs,” said Marco. He tugged his fork free of the tabletop, speared some sort of shellfish and brought it genteelly to his mouth, his expression the same calm, serene look he'd worn even when trying to pin Ace's hand to the table with his fork.

“Yeah, and you eat like the bird you are,” Ace retorted. “ _Buk, buk!_ ”

Teach polished off the last piecrust and leaned back, his chair creaking dangerously. “That’s some sad chicken noises, Ace. Who taught you to play farmyard, ‘cause they didn’t do a great job.”

I watched them bicker for a couple of minutes before some stray comment reminded me of my food. It disappeared quickly into my gullet – I must have been hungrier than I had thought.

Pushing my empty plate away, I sat back in my chair and watched them pilfer morsels of food off their neighbours' plates. Marco seemed to be the favoured target, albeit the one they had the least chance of successfully liberating his food. I wondered if the appeal was in the challenge. It had to be something like that, because the food on Marco’s plate was what looked like raw shellfish and some sort of thick seed gruel. I’d literally never seen a less appetising meal.

At last, Ace leaned back, seeming to give up. "You're so mean, Marco!" he whined, scowling rebelliously at the first-division commander. "It's not as if you're eating much of it anyway."

"That would be because I've been too busy trying to keep you away from it."

Reading between the lines, I guessed that this was a scene they'd played out at quite a few meals in the past. Even Ace's scowl had a resigned complacency to it, as though he hadn’t expected any better outcome.

"Although," Marco continued, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, "it looks as though it might be time for seconds."

Ace scrambled upright without a word, swept his plate into his arms and dashed back to the buffet. Teach followed closely behind.

Destry leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head and sighing. "You're secretly quite nice, aren't you."

Marco lifted a hand in what might have been acknowledgement. "It's all a matter of opinion, eh."

The table was a lot quieter without Ace or Teach. Damini and Marco returned to their meals; Destry vanished into the kitchen, complaining about the cleanup job ahead of him.

I leaned over the table, resting my head in my hands, and watched Marco out the corner of my eyes. I hadn't had the time to form a proper opinion of him last night, and I intended to remedy that now.

A fluff of blonde hair perched on the crown of his head, the opposite of a monk’s tonsure. His skin was a few shades darker than Ace's, and where the younger pirate carried scars all over his exposed limbs and torso, Marco had virtually none. Lean muscle wrapped around a rangy skeleton, bones jutting at his wrists and collar. His movements were deft and precise, no spare action wasted.

Try as I might, I couldn't have guessed his age in a million years. (It was strange; he seemed somehow young and old at the same time.)

He didn't have the same air of authority that Whitebeard carried, but an aura of calm assurance nevertheless permeated the atmosphere around him. His dozy, half-lidded eyes were a dusky blue, like the evening sky.

Those sky-blue eyes flicked toward me, fixing me with an intent sidelong gaze. "Loki, was it? Is there any particular reason you're staring at me like that?"

I blinked, realised I’d been caught.

"It takes me a while to form a first impression of people,” I admitted. “Figured I'd better get on with it."

Amusement tugged at the corners of his full lips. "I suppose you'd better, in that case." He set his fork down on his now-empty plate, and rose to his feet, nodding once to me. "Welcome to the Whitebeard Pirates. I'll be seeing you around."

With that, he turned back to the galley at large, and I lost sight of him in the crowd.

Somehow, it felt like I'd passed some sort of test.

Ace returned with his second massive helping of lunch and a pair of the younger guys in tow. “Kieran, Deuce, meet Damini and Loki, my strays.” He pointed to each of us in turn, then wedged himself into the chair Marco had vacated. "What's the plan for the afternoon, guys? I've got nothing to do and I'm bored."

Damini inched her chair sideways, making room for the new arrivals. “Grim said something about wanting to see how Loki and I fight.”

I lifted my head from my hands, frowning. That was the first I’d heard of that plan.

“Oooh." Ace inhaled half a loaf of garlic bread and said something through the mouthful. Bits of half-chewed savory sprayed the table; the sentence came out muffled into obscurity.

The second of the newcomers rolled his eyes through the opera mask he wore and thumped Ace on the shoulder. “Manners aren't just for making you look pretty, dickhead.”

Ace swallowed, a mighty effort. “I said, that sounds fun!”

"For you, maybe." Damini pursed her lips. “It's been a long time since I had any sort of combat training, and gods know how much of it I remember.”

Kieran laughed, a friendly sound. “That's okay, I never had anyone to train me. Man up, kid."

"How can she?' Ace objected. He paused, slurping up his spaghetti with a satisfied smack of his lips, and continued, "She's not a man."

"Woman up, then. No, that just sounds weird."

"How 'bout just plain toughen up?" Teach appeared behind Deuce, plate-less and pie-less. He picked a couple of crumbs off the table and ate them, licking his fingers clean. "I might come watch. It'd fill up an afternoon and there's gotta be a betting pool."

"We don't need an audience, but I guess it's bound to happen." Damini deflated, sighing. "It's going to be a long afternoon."

* * *

Outside it was warm and windy, the worst of the sun hidden behind a thin sheet of cloud. Neroli hailed us as we left the galley -- she turned out to be running preparations for Grim.

An audience had formed on the open deck between the fore and second masts. Malicia Grim, a tiny old woman with short dark grey hair, held court over the gathered crew. They paid little attention to Damini and I as we arrived. The crowd shifted, cheering, and between the press of shoulders I caught a glimpse of a sparring match. The first combatant I recognised as Kieran, from lunch. The second was Sierra Lee, one of the most senior women in the crew.

Damini was dead right. It was going to be a very long afternoon.

Both combatants were unarmed. I stood watching for a moment, but it was plain as day that despite his greater weight and reach, Kieran was hopelessly outclassed. Sierra ducked and dodged around his attacks, weaving a complex pattern of movement before some line of approach lined up. She darted close between his outstretched arms, slamming her palm into the centre of his ribcage. Knocked off his feet, he flew backwards and tumbled heavily onto the deck.

Cracking her knuckles, Sierra smiled a savage grin of victory as Kieran stumbled to his feet. She was just as tall and heavily-built as most of the men, with bare arms covered in corded muscle and dozens of old scars. Her brilliant auburn hair was braided, tied back in a bunch at the nape of her neck, and her narrowed, laughing eyes were piercing orange. Of all the women I'd met last night, Sierra was by far the most intimidating. She moved deceptively lightly on her feet, and spoke with a harsh growl.

"Next time, watch my eyes rather than my feet," she told Kieran, who nodded obediently. "They'll tell you my next move before my movements do."

And apparently she was teaching the younger pirates some brawling tricks. My anxiety evaporated, muscles relaxing in my neck and shoulders. This, then, was a crew that had room for those who were still learning.

"Hey, Grim." Neroli raised a hand at the navigator as she led Damini and I out into the makeshift ring. "The newbies are here. Shall we start the test?"

Grim gave us a severe look, inspecting us from head to toe. Whatever she found seemed to satisfy her; she inclined her head, pressing the ink-stained tips of her thumb and forefinger together. “Both of you are comfortable with hand-to-hand combat, I hear.”

I nodded. Damini had to think about it for a moment before she assented.

There was a movement from the audience. Ace, who had disappeared off somewhere the second we’d left the galley, pushed his way between two burly pirates into the circle.

"Better wait 'til Pops gets here first," he said, grinning mischievously. “He says he wants to see how the newbies handle a fight for himself.”

Damini pulled her scarf down over her face. “Gods, please.”

"You invited him?” Neroli raised an eyebrow at the younger pirate. “I thought the nurses had him this afternoon.”

"He invited himself. That's probably why.” Ace sat cross-legged at the edge of the chalk-marked ring on the deck. “Anyone else wanna fight while we wait for him to turn up?"

“Not you,” said Kieran, bracing his hands on his knees and giving Ace a brilliant smile. “You've kicked our asses enough this year, Firefist.”

Ace dipped a mock bow. “I live to serve.”

A shaggy-haired, bronze-skinned man stepped forward out of the crowd. A memory surfaced: this was the man who had objected to Whitebeard at the decision to let me join the crew.

"Bring it, Sierra,” he said, mouth a lopsided smirk. “I owe you one for last week."

Sierra returned a wolfish grin. “If you can, kitty.”

They circled each other, blinking freely and watching for an opening. Neroli leant toward me, whispering a commentary. "That's Panther. He's a gunner, she's a swordsman. They like to beat the shit out of each other every couple of weeks or so."

Without warning, Sierra darted forward. Panther reacted so quickly I almost missed the movement, stepping to her right and flowing seamlessly into a kick aimed at her midsection. Sierra blocked it with her forearm and reached out to grab Panther's vest. She yanked him close, driving her free fist into the side of his head with punishing force.

Both combatants stumbled back from each other, Sierra clutching her stomach, Panther pressing a palm to his head. Neroli whistled. I'd missed the punch he'd landed just beneath Sierra's ribcage.

After a moment's pause, the fight began again. This time it was Panther who pressed the attack, landing punches and retreating out of her range with speed and agility my eyes could not keep up with. It seemed to me that she was losing, as first one punch, then another made it past her defence, thudding into her torso and head. Then suddenly Panther lost his advantage -- her hand wrapped around his wrist. She yanked him in close, bent her knees, and slammed into him shoulder-first. They tumbled to the deck, going from boxing to wrestling.

Tall lanky Panther put up a good fight, but burly Sierra had the advantage now. She hooked her leg over his hips, pinning him to the deck, and grappled for his arms. Panther managed to land a backhanded strike on her cheek that sent her reeling, following it up with a lightning-fast shove that pushed her over backwards. Sierra grabbed his shoulder on the way down, tossing him bodily across the deck.

Panther rolled as he hit the deck, jumping to his feet and spinning to face her. He blocked a strike and slid seamlessly into a counterattack, hooking one leg behind her knees and sweeping her off her feet. He tried the same trick she’d used on him earlier, pinning her with his own weight, but Sierra got one leg free and buried her knee in his gut. Both combatants broke apart, momentarily, wheezing.

Panther recovered first. He leapt forward with catlike speed and grace, wrapping one hand around Sierra’s throat. She reacted instantly—reached up and grabbed his face, fingers poised to dig into his eyeballs.

They froze like that for a few moments, perfectly matched. There was a moment of silence—then Whitebeard’s rumbling laugh broke the spell.

“You two at it again?” he said, his voice resounding from that great bull-chest of his like distant thunder. Flanked by nurses, he strode over to his chair and sat, looking over the gathered pirates like a king surveying his court. “What’s the score these days? Last I checked it was twenty to twenty-one in Panther’s favour.”

“Sixty to sixty-three to me,” Sierra croaked, her orange eyes flicking across to Whitebeard. “Would be more, but we’ve had a few draws lately, and Panther won’t let me use them as points, even if I give him some too.”

Panther’s breath hitched unsteadily in his throat. “Draws don’t count. No-one wins.”

“Yeah, but no-one loses either.” Sierra scowled. “So, kitty, you gonna let me go anytime soon?”

“On the count of three. One, two—”

Both combatants released their death-grips at the same time. Panther sprang to his feet, blinking in relief. Sierra sat up more sedately, massaging her throat.

“Hi, Pops,” she said, interlacing her fingers and luxuriously stretching them out in front of her. “Nice day for a spot of sparring, huh?”

Whitebeard grunted, grinning underneath his moustache. “I hear you’re plannin’ to test the newbies today. Grim given you permission to rough up her apprentice a bit?”

“So long as you don’t touch her fingers,” the crabby navigator scowled from under the shade of the sails. A shadow behind her resolved into Marco, smiling in what might have been amusement. “That girl’s got a nice steady hand, and I’ll be pissed if any of you lummoxes break it.”

“That’s only the slightest bit comforting,” Damini whispered to me. She pulled the hood of her robe away from her hair, wrapping it around her shoulders and fixing the ends under her sash. Her long black braid spilled down her back, easily brushing the backs of her thighs.

“I didn’t know your robe could do that,” Ace commented in a low voice, taking a spot in the front row of the assembled pirates. “That’s handy for a fight.”

“It’s one of the reasons I brought this one,” Damini replied. Her voice was steady, but a slight tremble of her hands belied her nerves.

I looked down at my own hands. They looked steady at first, but suddenly there was a weight on my shoulder, and my hands gave a great shudder.

“So who wants to go first?” Sierra asked, looking between Damini and I. Her thin lips shadowed at the corners with a wicked grin. “Antiope will test you, tiddler,” she told Damini. “Blondie, you get me. Aren’t you lucky?”

My heart thumped. I nodded, wondering if I ought to reply in words and if so, what I should say. My mouth dried up. Was Sierra waiting for me to speak? I couldn’t place the look in her orange eyes.

Damini glanced at me, putting on a brave face. “I’ll go first. May as well get this over and done with so I can go back to nice pacifistic charts.”

Sierra chuckled, pushing her out into the middle of the amphitheatre. “Antiope, we got a smart one here. Let’s see what she can do.”

Antiope moved out into the open deck, giving Damini an encouraging smile. She was one of the older pirates, her short hair solid grey and her tanned face crisscrossed with dozens of thin scars. “Are you ready?” she asked, in a voice that was higher and softer than I had expected.

Damini paused, then nodded decisively.

Antiope attacked, and Damini blocked first one punch, then another. She dodged around the older, woman, aiming a kick at her side which was easily blocked. Antiope rocked back on her heels, foot snapping out in a kick. Damini evaded it, turning neatly to keep Antiope in her sights.

It seemed as though they were evenly matched at first. Then I looked closer, and saw the carefully measured control in Antiope’s stance and movements. Damini was giving the fight all she had, but the older pirate wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

Then I remembered—this was the entire point behind the match. It wasn’t to find a winner; that would be a foregone conclusion. Antiope meant to test Damini, to drag out her skill and gauge her potential. Her entire strategy was to push Damini just to her limits, and no further.

She was doing a good job of it, too. Even I could tell that Damini’s movements had started out rusty, unpracticed, but as the fight went on she got used to her half-remembered techniques and started to react on instinct rather than conscious thought. I thought back to that afternoon in the village, and the way she had evaded the man who had attacked her.

“Enough,” Whitebeard said, and Antiope instantly broke off the fight. Damini stumbled to a halt, taken by surprise by the sudden lack of an opponent. “Damini, was it? Who taught you how to fight?”

“My uncles,” Damini said breathlessly, bracing her hands on her knees and panting hard. “I’m from a Guardian kennel originally; I could only study at the College because I won a scholarship for the tuition. I started fighting when I was four. Haven’t practiced at all since I was eleven, though.”

“What’s a Guardian kennel?” Ace asked, curiosity written all over his freckled face. “Something Carolingen, I guess, but I’m kinda new to the New World too.”

“We used to be hereditary guards of Carolinge’s kings,” Damini explained, straightening to face him properly. “We’re taught to fight because we always have been and no-one wants to let the tradition die out, but since there are no kings to guard anymore we tend to end up either in the Marines or as local law enforcement. Bodyguards too, sometimes.”

“I know of the tradition,” Whitebeard rumbled, folding his arms across his chest. “You’ve been taught well, but you’re out of practice and you’re sticking to the rules like a sport fighter. Pirates fight dirty—better get used to that.”

Antiope motioned her over to the shade of the sails, where Grim sat waiting for her. “You did well, Damini.”

Sierra’s hand clapped heavily down on my shoulder. She steered me out into the amphitheatre, where dozens of eyes settled upon me, the sensation raising hairs on the back of my neck. I turned a slow circle, looking back at Damini and then across to our captain, who gazed back, yellow eyes glinting in the sun.

Whitebeard grinned. “Now let’s see what you can do, blondie.”

I had perhaps a second’s warning before Sierra’s fist slammed into my cheek.

Pain lanced through my skull. I threw myself backwards, dodging her next strike. Sierra stepped in close, and the world turned upside down as she tossed me over her hip. I reached out my hand and touched the deck, landing on my shoulder and rolling to my feet.

There was no respite. She tried the same trick again, but this time some voice in my head howled for her blood. I managed to catch her right arm and hang on. Her lips quirked upward; she cocked her fist and struck out again. I raised my arm to deflect the blow, then saw almost in frozen time as she aimed the same open-handed blow she’d used to defeat Kieran at my stomach.

I reacted before I realised it, clenching my stomach muscles and stepping into the blow. At the same time I threw a punch of my own, and felt my knuckles graze along her jaw. A glancing blow, but not one without effect.

I let go of her arm and threw myself away, wheezing and trying not to think about the raging pain radiating through my midsection. To my surprise, Sierra paused, touching her fingers to her jaw.

“That was a surprise. I’d have almost said you’ve been Marine-trained, but that was a pirate move there if I ever saw one.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked, my breathing evening. Bloody hell, that had _hurt_.

“Marines generally prioritise defense. With pirates, it depends on the combat background they come from, but as a loose generalisation, we don’t mind getting hurt so long as the other guy gets hurt worse.”

A glint in her eye was my only warning. She leapt in close and punched me again, but this time I’d been ready for the movement. I lifted my arms, deflected the first blow. Sierra kneed me and hit the joint of my hip. I felt that leg go down, grabbed Sierra’s arms, and headbutted her _hard_.

I saw rather than felt my body hit the deck. My vision flashed black, and for a moment I marveled at the sensation of being outside of my own body. Then my head split open with sharp and searing pain. My awareness flashed along my limbs and into my fingers and toes. I clutched my head as if that would somehow make the pain go away, and swore a blue streak.

Voices exclaimed, speaking words that made no sense to me whatsoever. Something in the background roared. I opened my eyes wide and blinked, going from blackness to a different kind of darkness before my vision returned on the second blink.

Blinking away tears, I came back to several of my crewmates looking down at me. Most of them were laughing their heads off.

“You okay there, blondie?” asked the young man with the bandanna over his face. I recognised him from the party last night; his name was Tad Russ. Ace hung over his shoulder, grinning.

I held onto my head a little longer. “That fucking hurt.”

“Yeah, Sierra’s got a hard head,” Ace put in. “I’m impressed, though. You just won me a decent prize pool. I’d say I expected it, but, well, _nobody_ expected it. That’s why it’s a big prize.”

“Expected what?” I groaned. A throbbing lance of pain shot through my skull at the words, and I winced, forcing myself not to grit my teeth. The deck under my back was hard and unwelcoming, but nausea swirled through my stomach at the mere thought of getting up.

Sierra’s head appeared within my narrow field of vision, grinning lopsidedly. There was an angry red mark on her cheekbone, split skin dribbling bright red blood.

“You actually managed to knock me down, kiddo. Not for long, but I went down, and that’s what counts. Dunno if you heard Pops laughing, but if you did, that was why.”

I blinked. “Really?”

“Really really,” Sierra laughed. “Guess you’ve got a bloody hard head too. I might have broken a bone without haki. You should stay down there for a moment, let us make sure you haven’t broken your own head too.”

“Haki?” Another unfamiliar word for my notebook.

“Something like willpower,” Ace said, as if that explained anything. “That was an epic headbutt. Why’d you do it?”

I lifted my hand from my forehead. There was a little blood on my fingers, but I couldn’t feel any cut.

“I figured I was going down either way. Felt like I had to do something, and my head was in range.”

“A very pirate-like reaction,” a voice observed. Marco’s, I realised. I gingerly turned my head, trying to find him, but no such luck.

“How’s your head?” he continued from somewhere behind Ace. “Hurting, I wager.”

“Like a bitch,” I said, wondering where the words came from. My vocabulary of curses had broadened greatly from the first day in Lahaiyla’s house, but it seldom occurred to me to use them. Pain loosened my inhibitions, perhaps.

A new face appeared, peering down at me. This one belonged to an old man, with soft jade eyes ringed with crows’ feet wrinkles and sandy brown hair shot through with many grey streaks. He had a natty moustache perched underneath a flat nose, and wore a bright red bowtie at his neck. The rest of him was classic pirate.

“Her pupils look fine—no dilation beyond what you’d expect when we’re all standing in her sun,” he said. “Can you stand, Loki?”

“I could, but it’ll hurt,” I replied. The nausea had settled; I levered my elbows against the decking and cautiously pushed myself up.

“Try anyway,” he said, smiling reassuringly. “Any dizziness, blurred vision?”

I braced my hands against the deck, surprised at how little my head twinged when I pushed myself upright. “I feel okay, all things considered. Head hurts, but it’s better than it was.”

“Always a good sign,” Whitebeard observed from his chair. He gazed down at me with a considering glimmer in his yellow eyes, chin resting on his knuckles. “That is an interesting fighting style you got there. Not quite Marines, not quite pirate either. You’ll just have to find out the hard way, and It’s up to you, and you alone to find it. I doubt anybody else would be able to help you. Just know this: it can be found.”

I wiped the blood from my forehead, gazing back at him. "You're not just talking about my fighting, are you."

Whitebeard chuckled. "You're a mystery, brat. I'm sure you already realise how much of a pain in the ass that can be." He nodded once, and stood, towering above me. “The mystery is in your own hands now, Loki. Do what you will with it.”


	6. ships that sank in the desert

_\- ships that sank in the desert -_

**...**

We left Carolinge on the midday tide a couple days later. The sky was cloudy and the wind brisk, which blunted the effect of Carolinge’s dry heat, but I still somehow managed a sunburn. Skin peeling, I retreated to the bow after dinner that evening, and watched darkness shroud the horizon in night.

When I woke the next morning, I couldn’t remember where I was. I stared up  at the ceiling in the women’s cabin for the longest time, slow terror curling through my innards, before something clicked in my brain and I remembered the Moby Dick.

 _Pirate, pirate, pirate,_ I told myself, hammering the thought through my head as I clambered out of my hammock and pulled on my Carolingen jacket. _Remember Damini, remember Ace, remember Neroli and Tad and everyone else. Don’t you dare forget._

The morning was fresh and cool, the maritime climate of the open sea approaching. I headed to the upper stern deck, where Neroli waited to begin my apprenticeship for the day.

The Moby Dick was big. Seeing it from the outside was impressive, but not until I’d walked its decks had I truly realised _how_ big it was. I took to wandering around the halls, scouting out the nooks and crannies Ace’s grand tour had missed. When I returned to my hammock in the evening (or in the morning, after being recruited for a night watch) I turned to the back pages in my notebook, where I’d begun a map of the Moby Dick. On the facing page, parts of Tusanto sprawled across the paper. Past that initial moment of confusion on waking, the details stuck in my memory perfectly well, but I did not trust my head to hold this newfound knowledge alone. The map grew quickly, and notes appeared in the margins.

The cabin Damini and I shared with the thirteen women of the first and second divisions was the smallest on the first lower deck, located amidships not far from the infirmary. If I went two doors toward the bow, I came to the much larger cabin that belonged to Ace and about twenty-five other first-divisioners. If I went sternward, I came to the galley and kitchen.

The galley had quickly become my favourite place on the ship. Mealtimes were loud and raucous -- and somehow, despite all the thievery and occasional flying food items, fun. The food itself was delicious. Destry and the other cooks must have been gourmet chefs in their past lives.

If I woke early, around dawn, I ate a light breakfast in the galley while it was quiet. If I slept later, I tended to wake to an unsettled stomach, so left the first meal of the day until lunch.

Today, I’d overslept. Neroli gave me a knowing grin as I approached.

“Today I’m going to teach you about sails.” She gestured up at the rigging, then to the two men who lurked at the ship’s railing behind her. “Tad Russ and Neelam are going to help me out. Have you two met Loki?”

Tad pulled down his bandana, giving me a toothy smile. Both his cheeks had been cut open from the corners of his mouth, turning the grin nightmarish. “Morning, No-Grins.”

I blinked. “Do you mean me?”

Tad made a show of looking around the deck. “I don't see anyone else here who fits that description. Do you?” he asked, turning to Neelam.

Neelam, a short dark-skinned man with wiry wrists and long-fingered hands, shrugged. “You've been here for, what, almost a week? I don't think I've seen you smile once.”

I glanced back to Neroli. “Is that a problem?”

“Naw,” said Neelam. He jabbed his thumb at Tad, and gave me a wink. “I figure someone has to compensate for Two-Grins here.”

My shoulders loosened, relief sliding through my frame. “Okay. I can do that.”

Neroli smiled broadly. “Neelam is a sailor, like me. Tadpole is a fighter.”

“You know, I think Two-Grins is a better nickname,” said Tad, ruffling Neroli’s hair. “Where d’ya want us, Nero?”

“For the moment, right here.” Neroli bent, lifting a wide piece of old canvas sail. “We're going to tie this to the rail, and you two are going to be Loki’s team.”

Tad groaned. “So tying the same knot fifty million times. Got it.”

“And then you'll do it fifty million more, while balancing on the rail. You could do with the practice anyway.” Neroli turned to me, pulling the end of a line from the sail in her arms. Her eyes glimmered, sunlight reflecting in the sea behind her. “This is how you do it, Loki. Don't worry, it's quite simple.”

I watched her hands closely, then spent the next half an hour trying to replicate the knot.

When the lunch bell rang at midday, I followed Tad and Neelam down into the galley, obeying the call of my empty stomach. Work was an effective distraction, but even so I'd been anticipating lunch for a while now.

Ace was waiting at the table by the buffet window, Teach two seats down and Damini on the other side. He raised a hand as we entered, beckoning. “There you are! Come on, the more the merrier!”

"Not me; I like my food on my plate and in my mouth,” said Neelam. He grinned, bade myself and Tad a farewell and made tracks for a table across the room.

Tad looked at me. “He hasn't scared you off yet?”

I headed for the buffet. “No. It's free entertainment.”

A snort behind me, muffled by Tad’s bandana. “He doesn't try to steal from you?”

“He steals from everyone. I just take a few extra things and eat my favourite bits first.”

“Just stab him,” Tad suggested, catching up. “He's made of fire, it won't hurt him unless you use haki.”

Ace directed a thunderous scowl at him. “Look, don't give her ideas. Marco’s scary enough on his own.”

“No, that sounds like a good idea to me,” said a voice, and the man in question appeared on my other side. He gave me a commiserating look from heavy-lidded blue eyes, and smiled. “Join my crusade to teach Ace some table manners, Loki; I could do with reinforcements.”

The cooks emerged with lunch. Today I picked garlic bread, white fish, and a sloppy helping of stewed fruit, with a couple of chicken drumsticks as offerings to the lunch thieves. I sat with Damini to my left, and Marco took the chair on my right. Tad perched at the end of the table. We ate for a minute, accompanied by the myriad sounds of Teach digging into his pie and Ace seeing how much food his mouth could physically hold.

Destry arrived, and took the empty chair on Marco’s other side. “We need another kitchen hand. You first-divisioners are tempting my boy Murdoc away, or rather that Kieran kid is. I ain't gonna stand in the way of true love, but I still need someone to peel vegetables and boil water for me.”

“Hm,” said Marco, chasing mint peas around his plate. “You can never have too many cooks. I'll poke around for someone who might like a career change.”

Destry listed a few names I didn't recognise; probably second-divisioners. I'd worked my way through about half the first-division roster as yet, but the divisions worked in shifts and I hadn't had the chance to mingle with much of Second yet.

Movement caught my attention -- Ace’s hand inching toward my plate. I watched him out the corner of my eye. He seemed to be watching Destry quite intently, grinning like he hadn't a care in the world or a thought in his head. His hand acted almost independently of him.

"So who's the second division's commander, anyway?" Damini asked through a mouthful of food. "I haven't heard any mention of such a person yet."

"No-one at the moment, actually," Destry replied, raising an eyebrow at her. "Have you been taking lessons in manners from Ace and Teach, by any chance?"

Ace forced down his current mouthful. "Hey, leave the girl alone! At least she's got a healthy appetite!" He winked at Damini, his hand just about in range of my fork. "He's right, though. They have no commander—no second either, now that I think about it—so Marco's been looking after them as well as First for the last couple of years, or so I hear. But he's not the official commander."

Marco nodded slowly, twirling a section of spaghetti around his fork. "Pops has some ideas for who's going to be appointed to the big seat, but we're going to wait and see what happens for a little while yet. There are a couple of relatively inexperienced candidates with the potential to grow into the role."

"Ooh, really?" Ace snatched the sacrificial drumstick from my plate and leaned forward over the table, his eyes sparkling with interest. "Who is it?"

Marco looked meaningfully at my plate, then across the table at Ace. “That would be telling, wouldn't it.”

"Oh, you're no fun." Ace demolished the drumstick in short order, returning the bones to my plate. By that time I had finished the fish, always my favourite part of the meal. “What about Teach? He's been with the division for ages, hasn't he?”

Teach diverted his attention from his pie long enough to shake his head. Raspberry juices dropped down into his scrubby beard. “Nah, not me.”

“Why not?” asked Ace through a fresh mouthful. He turned to Marco, cheeks bulging. “How much work do you guys actually do?”

Marco shrugged. “It depends. And we considered Teach, but the division commander position entails a few more responsibilities than you might think.”

“I'm not here to fuck spiders,” said Teach, more than a little cryptically. “Paperwork ain’t really my thing.”

“Paperwork?” echoed Damini. “Out here?”

“Budgeting,” said Marco. “Keeping track of repairs, supplies, people -- things like that. Theoretically you could do most of it in your head, but it’s good to have things written down in case you ever need to refer back to them.”

I nodded along. That made sense. My notebook had grown out of the same idea.

“Whitebeard doesn't oversee it or anything?” Damini set her knife and fork down on her empty plate. “It's just convenience, is it?”

Marco pointed his fork at her. “Look, if I left it to Pops we’d have sake and nothing but sake,” he said, and grinned. “He's earned his foibles, so I make sure we don't all come down with scurvy. Some of the other commanders help. Some are even less organisationally-inclined than Pops. In the end, we all have our specialties.”

Damini nodded. “How do you pick the commanders? I always wondered about that.”

“It's different every time.” Marco idly spun spaghetti around his fork and ate it, though he didn't look very enthusiastic about it. “Rakuyou’s a damn good fighter and he doesn't so much keep Seventh in line as point them in the most productive direction. Haruta has great ideas and a talent for networking that's frankly scary. We put Kingdew in Eleventh because the whole division wanted him. Second is a harder prospect, because you're all assholes.”

“Zehahaha! You need to find the biggest asshole and put him in charge. It'll solve all your problems.” Teach pushed his chair back and got to his feet, collecting his empty plates. “Can't be Destry, though. I’ll murder you all if you get in the way of him making his pie.”

Marco gave a lazy flap of his hand. “You have my word it'll never happen, eh.”

I considered the rest of my dinner for a long moment, the taste of fish returning to me in a burp. “Is that a joke? The thing about Second being assholes?”

“Yup. Helps that it's mostly true.” Ace exhaled loudly, and turned to Marco. "Can I have the rest of your spaghetti?"

Marco looked down at his plate as if he'd forgotten about it. "I guess so." He took one last mouthful, then pushed his plate across the table to Ace, who looked as if his birthday had come early. "I've got to see Pops, anyway. We'll be meeting up with Third and Fourth in a few days, and it seems they've got wind of a problem."

Destry frowned. "What sort of a problem?"

Marco shrugged, rising languidly to his feet. "Not sure yet, eh. Their den-den mushi is sick at the moment—can’t get through more than a couple of words without losing the signal. And Thatch was never very good at summarising."

* * *

“Dammit, I hate the evening shift. I bet Teach’ll have eaten all the chicken nibbles by the time we get down there.”

A couple evenings later found me working my first shift in the rigging. The sounds of a rowdy dinner floated up through the masts, our calls and the slapping of waves against the hull of the Moby Dick loud beneath the darkening sky.

Ace and I were working on the second highest sail, Tad and Neelam on the one underneath. They'd tied me to the rigging with a rope around my waist. This had only taken the edge off my nerves.

Ace, apparently, did not usually work through the dinner hours. He'd treated me to a running monologue on how inhumane it was to make him miss the buffet line for the last half hour.

It was actually kind of impressive. He could be surprisingly eloquent on the topic of food.

“It’s Destry’s fault, I know it is. Destry’s wife is the one who draws up these shift lists, you know? They’ve both got it in for me, have had since—no, I won’t go there, I promised myself I’d put it behind me. I can hear those soft, moist, delectable little appetizers calling out to me.” He trailed off, leaning back with no apparent regard for the several meters of empty air between our spar and the deck, and lashed the rope he held to the spar. “Stupid Teach, he better save some for me.”

He proceeded to describe about seventeen different dishes before someone elsewhere in the rigging threatened to chuck him overboard if he didn’t shut up.

Ace flipped his middle finger at the offending crewmember, who perhaps wisely pretended not to notice. There was maybe five minutes of quiet.

Deprived of my entertainment, I refocused on our work.

The navigators had predicted high winds overnight, so we’d been sent up to trim the sails before the weather turned hairy. Down at the stern, several men hauling a contraption like a drag net made of plastic sheets out of storage -- this, Neroli informed me, was the sea anchor. Once we were done with the sails, this would be hauled overboard, hopefully preventing us from being blown off our course.

Neroli checked on me every so often, pointing out what needed to be done and explaining how. She was much more at home up here in the rigging than she was down on-deck, dashing here and there on this mission and that, dancing along the spars with such surefooted ease she probably could have done it in her sleep.

Meanwhile I was trying my hardest to forget the single span of rope between my feet and empty air. I didn’t have Neroli’s inhuman sense of balance—all I had was a thin cord lifeline tied around my waist. My toes kept curling up, digging into thin air as a swirl of wind pushed me off-balance yet again. I found myself missing Ace’s food monologue with a vengeance.

A sudden gust of wind caught the half-furled sail, dragging the rope through my hands. I clenched my fingers tight, wincing at the sting of rough fibres rubbing my palms raw. The wind flagged and quickly died. The sail bulged against the wind, then slowly deflated.

"You got the rope all right?" Ace called across to me.

I let go of the rope with one hand, shook it until the stinging subsided in the cool sea air, then repeated the process with the other hand. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“It’s better to let go than have your hands flayed raw,” Neroli put in from the mast. “I know your instinct is to grab on, but the sail is big and the wind is stronger than you are.”

I nodded, though it was unlikely Neroli would see. “I understand.”

Ace pointed upwards at the highest sail, flapping merrily above the crow’s nest. "The royal needs to come in. Reckon you can handle the height, Loki?"

I ponderously tied off my final knot, pushing myself back off the spar. "Dunno. Let's try anyway."

I edged along the rigging, back into the mess of lines and ladders around the mast. The wind buffeted against me, hard and soft by turns, and I'd never been gladder for the lifeline wrapped around my waist.

Neroli untied my lifeline as I reached safety. “You’re doing well, Loki.” She gave me a warm smile, then turned and scuttled up to the top spar. I followed, doing my best not to look down. Neroli reattached my lifeline to the rigging.

Ace popped up behind me. He grinned, his black eyes glittering with sunset. “Man, I love it up here.”

Neroli returned his grin. “It’s glorious, isn’t it.”

My iron self-control corroded. A flash of sun at the horizon caught my eye, and from there I was drawn inexorably to the rippling surface of the sea and the Moby Dick itself, so far below me. I suddenly had the impression of looking into another world. Wavelets surged and merged into each other, water turning steely as the sun dropped lower. The mast swayed metres or more with every little wave that raised the ship.

“Oi, Loki.” Ace snapped his fingers in front of my nose. Little sparks leapt from his thumb. “You still with us?”

I blinked, dragged my eyes away from the sea. “Yes.”

He and Neroli gave me a searching look. I stared back, borrowing the sight of their bodies and sound of their voices for grounding.

Eventually, Neroli nodded. “Let’s get going.”

It wasn't until we’d tied the sail down and I was back on the solid reassuring deck. that the after-effects really kicked in. A full-body shiver took me over, aching chills settling into my white-knuckled hands.

A warm hand grabbed mine. I looked up into the cool gray eyes of another of the evening’s rigging team -- Verna, one of the first division’s younger women.

“Good, no rope burn,” she muttered, giving me the tiniest of smiles. “I figured you must have had some sailing experience, looking at these calluses. You certainly don’t act like it, so I suppose apprenticing yourself to Neroli was a good idea.”

“It was her good idea, not mine,” I told her, and frowned in confusion when she chuckled.

“Well, all’s well that ends well. To be honest, I didn’t know why Pops let you join us at first, but we may be able to make something out of you after all.” Verna bobbed a tiny curtsey, and vanished into the galley before I could reply.

“Verna!” called a voice from behind me, followed by a sigh. Neroli appeared at my side. “I hope that was a good encounter.”

I weighed Verna’s words. “I… think so?”

“Good.” Neroli sighed again. “We argued over you. There’s a few of the crew who think you’re a Marine plant, you know.”

“I didn’t, but it’s not surprising,” I replied. The crew was tightly-knit, and while most of the people I had met had been friendly and welcoming, trust was another matter entirely.

There was a parade of dark clouds marching closer amid the sunset, puffing upwards and outwards as the storm they bred grew stronger. Neroli shielded her eyes from the sunset with one hand, squinting into the storm.

“I told Ace to grab some dinner as quickly as he can. We’re still a way away from being storm-ready. You should get some too.”

A light puff of wind brushed my hair in front of my face, making the sleeves of my shirt flicker against my arms. I shifted, spreading my feet wider as the deck rolled beneath my feet. Reflecting sunset made a strong contrast against the darkness in the storms. If I breathed deeply, there was strange smell underlying the brine in the air.

I nodded. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Damini had said at lunch that these storms would not be much more than squalls. Watching the clouds grow up, upward and out until they formed a massive anvil shape that stretched across the southern horizon, I wondered if perhaps the forecast had been upgraded since.

The galley was quiet, those who weren’t assisting on-deck either absorbed in dinner or waiting out the storm in their cabins. I grabbed a bread bun from the buffet line, filled it with coleslaw and a chicken fillet, then returned to the deck, stuffing my face.

The last fingers of sunset disappeared behind the outriding clouds on the edge of the storm. The preparations on deck had acquired a new sense of urgency.

A passing man pressed a coil of rope into my hands. "Take that down to the guys at the jigger mast, will ya?" he said, and hurried away without waiting for an answer.

I swallowed, stuffed the rest of my bun into my mouth, and loped down to the rear mast, passing the rope to the first person who asked for it. Then someone gave me another length of rope attached to a wooden peg of some unknown purpose and sent me down to the tiller room.

I spent the next half an hour or so running errands for people, keeping me from observing the storm. It came as a surprise when the first roll of thunder boomed across the sky, but by the time the winds turned cold and set in for real, we were ready for whatever the storm might have thrown at us. We spare sailors trooped down below decks, where the cooks had broken out one of the old crates of good rum.

I gathered with everyone else for a bottle of the stuff, then found myself a nice quiet corner and sat back, watching as those of the crew who weren't rostered on to work until tomorrow afternoon proceeded to get massively drunk. Ten minutes in, Tad wandered over to sit by me, peeling off his sodden bandanna and taking a deep draught of his own drink.

“Good stuff, that is,” he sighed, peering down into his bottle. “What’re you doing all alone back here, No-Grins? You’re missing all the fun.”

I managed to keep my rum from spilling as the ship lurched beneath us. “What fun? Everyone’s just getting drunk.”

Tad frowned at me for a moment, before his scarred face split into a disturbing grin. “That’s half the fun right there. Don’t tell me you’ve never gotten drunk before.”

“Not that I remember.” Who knew what I’d done before losing my memories?

“Oh right, the amnesia.” Tad cocked his head to the side, running his fingers through his wet hair. “That’s a sad state of affairs right there. Hey, you know what? I heard of a guy once, some Marine big shot, who lost some important papers. He couldn’t remember where he’d put them at all, so he went and had a coupla drinks, and once he was completely plastered he remembered exactly where they were.”

I gave him a dubious look. “It’s not just papers I’ve lost, it’s my entire life.”

Tad shrugged and drained the last of his bottle. He thumped his chest, burping happily. “It’s still worth a try, hey? I know if it was me, I’d try _everything_ I could think of, even if it sounded totally stupid. Ace’d probably laugh at me, but I’d try anyway.”

I sat up straight, narrowing my eyes. That had stung—and yet it felt a little too close to the truth. I screwed my eyes shut, thinking back to that dusty street in Carolinge. My fingers tightened around the smooth glass neck of my bottle. Opening my eyes again, I made a lightning-quick decision, and downed the entire bottle.

Rum stung my throat, sitting heavy in my stomach like I’d swallowed a meteor. I took a deep, experimental breath, staring up at the wooden ceiling of the galley. Beside me, Tad whistled.

“Nice,” he said, grinning appreciatively. “You just gotta live a little, see? That’s what being a Whitebeard Pirate is all about.”

The galley door swung open, and Damini stumbled in, soaked to the skin. Ace followed on her heels, steaming gently.

Tad waved them over to our table, grinning at the thin wisps of vapour that trailed from Ace’s shoulders. “Pissing down out there, huh?”

Damini gave him a flat look, peeling the hood of her robe away from her hair.

“What do you think, genius?” Ace flopped down on the chair opposite mine, groaning. “I hate storms. Remind me to boycott the next one we hit.”

“If I have to suffer through it, so do you.” Damini shivered, clutching the table as the Moby Dick gave a violent lurch. “You at least have a fancy quick-dry method.”

“Want me to dry you out too?” Ace spread his arms wide. “I can do two people at once on a good day. Tad can vouch for me, can’t you, Tad?”

Tad quirked an eyebrow at him. “You tried to set me on fire, you dick.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Ace let his arms fall to his sides. His black eyes focused on the empty rum bottle in my hands. “Hey, where’d you get the booze from? And you didn’t get me one?”

I pointed the bottle over at the kitchen door, where the cooks guarded the now nearly empty crate from pirates looking for a refill out of turn. The meteor in my belly had scarcely shrank, but its’ warmth spread rapidly through my muscles. Nerves tingled in my sides and at my fingertips. “Get it yourself, you lazy bastard,” I found myself saying.

Damini looked at me with eyes wide in surprise, but both Ace and Tad roared with laughter.

“Fair enough!” Ace climbed to his feet, pushing Damini into his chair. “You keep my seat warm, ‘Mini, and I’ll get you one as well.” He looked back at Tad, who waggled his empty bottle hopefully. “And a refill for you, I suppose. Not for you, Loki, I’m cutting you off. That’s what you get for being mean to me!”

“Eh,” I said, attempting to express total disinterest. The first bottle had been enough for me.

Pulling my knees up to my chest, I perched on the edge of my chair like a seabird on the docks of Lokashiri. Heat swirled through my body like a typhoon, masking the chill that seeped down out of the storm.

I could get used to this, I thought.

* * *

I woke as the storm died the next morning, dressing in silence and emerging onto the deck ahead of the dawn.

This early, the water was black-edged grey, wavetops glittering silver as they lapped against the hull of the Moby Dick. The first fingers of a tentative dawn came creeping over the horizon, accompanied by seabirds that followed in the wake of the stormclouds disappearing into the north. Aside from the hushed murmur of the last shift of watchmen going into the galley for breakfast, the air around the ship was quiet.

My stomach grumbled, breaking the silence. I followed the last of the watchmen below deck again, into the hallway that led to the galley. Though the dawn light was strong enough to see by, lanterns still burned in brackets along the wall, bright orange flames casting warm light through the halls.

I'd been waking up around dawn for most of the voyage, but this was the first time I'd seen the Moby Dick like this. The ship was completely different without the crew hurrying around wherever I turned. Calmer, yes, but I could feel its own presence, all but imperceptible beneath the lives of its crew. It felt as if the Moby Dick itself was alive.

I took an apple from the bowl of fruit sitting in the buffet window and headed for the far end of the galley, away from the portholes, where the night's shadows still lingered. There was a kerfuffle of activity in the kitchen; the cooks preparing breakfast for when the rest of the crew woke up. I caught a glimpse of Destry through the half-open door, instructing one of the younger cooks in the creation of a pie of some sort.

Slowly, the galley grew brighter. I watched one of the apprentice cooks flit around dousing the lamps on the walls, Verna’s words from yesterday sitting heavy on my consciousness.

I hadn’t slept well last night, but not because of the storm. As the pleasant buzz of alcohol receded from my body, memories assailed my senses -- not my lost memories of the life I had led before Carolinge, but those significantly more recent. Panther, objecting to Whitebeard; Verna, telling me of her reservations; the wary glances I had caught from several crewmembers since.

 _“_ _All’s well that ends well. To be honest, I didn’t know why Pops let you join us at first, but we may be able to make something out of you after all.”_

It was a compliment of some sort, I thought, with a sting in the heel. If there was more to it, I hadn’t been able to figure out.

Since waking in Tusanto, I’d found my mind worked in a very literal way—sarcasm and metaphors often went straight over the top of my head. Added to this, I still knew very little about the world I'd suddenly found myself a part of. Facts were easy to learn; I listened well, and wrote them into my book when I judged it necessary. People were harder. I watched, listened, followed orders given to me, and still I found myself with a pervasive sense of being perpetually on the outside.

I’d have put this down to my lack of familiarity with anyone besides Damini, but the feeling did not fade when she and I were alone. Moreover, I’d tried to bring it up with her. She had gazed at me with confusion in her black eyes, and quite soon I had given up trying to explain the feeling. She had enough of her own work to be focusing on, anyway.

Eventually, frustrated and exasperated, I took a leaf out of Ace's book and ignored the whole problem. I'd figure out something eventually.

Time passed quickly. I gnawed on my apple, letting the world turn around me.

The sunlight pouring in through the portholes was stronger now, the grey tinge of dawn gone completely. The ship began to come to life. The noise of living people was still hesitant and sleepy, but they'd get louder soon enough.

Quietly, the door to the galley creaked open. I watched Marco slip into the room, that tuft of blonde hair on top of his head looking even more scruffy than usual.

If the crew was a family, with daughters and sons (and grandkids, in at least one case that I'd heard of), with Whitebeard the father, called 'Pops' by almost everyone, then Marco was the eldest brother. His role was one of command and support in equal measure; we all got to work when he gave the word, and in return he kept an eye on all of us, resolving little issues and putting in a good word for those of us that needed it. Where Whitebeard wore power like a robe and walked like there was not a soul in the world that could touch him, Marco felt much more down to earth -- touchable.

He passed the table where the watchmen were sitting, engaged in a raucous, laughing conversation, and added some comment that made them cackle even harder. Most of the watchmen were from the second division, but he spoke as if he knew them all equally well. He probably did—Neroli had told me a while ago that he'd been with the crew right from the start.

It was uncanny how he always seemed to know when he was being observed. I saw one of the watchmen gesture to an empty chair at their table, grinning entreatingly; Marco gently shook his head, and then his eyes lifted to meet mine across the empty galley between us.

I hunched down over the table, resting my chin on my folded arms as he strode over to my lonely little table, pulling out a chair and slouching comfortably in it.

"It seems like every time I look, you're staring at me," he said lightly, resting one arm on the tabletop. "Has it taken this long to form a first impression?"

His fingers drummed lightly on the wood. My apple core wobbled with the vibration.

I hadn't planned to answer properly, but the new words sprung unbidden to my lips. "No. I just watch you because you're interesting."

He raised his eyebrows, the corners of his mouth lifting. If I’d been more inclined to optimism, I’d have said he smiled.

"What makes you say that?"

I shrugged, not bothering to lift my head from the table though it made the movement a little awkward. "I don't know. You just are." It was true, but I had no words to explain the impulse with—another thing to ponder. "Good morning, by the way."

Marco’s smile widened. "It is, isn't it? It's going to be hot this afternoon, if I’m any judge. You're on today's shift, aren't you."

I nodded, though it wasn't a question. He might have laughed subtly in reply.

"Work hard and enjoy your day -- we’re on course to meet with the Bluefin after lunchtime. How's your apprenticeship to Neroli going?"

I lifted my head from my arms in surprise. "You know about that?"

An amused chuckle sprang from his lips. "Of course I do. I make it my business to know what's going on with everyone. To that end, I watch people—just like you do." Marco shifted in his seat, crossing one leg over the other in one smooth movement. "Neroli tells me she's been sailing since she learned to walk, which gives her proportionately more experience at it than me."

I let out a slow sigh, thinking over the time I'd spent under her instruction. "It's going pretty well, I think. I'm remembering everything I need to." _And more that I don't_ , I added mentally. My notebook was filling up at such a rate I'd need to replace it before long, its pages covered by diagrams of knots and other things that had come up day by day.

Marco’s expression changed imperceptibly. I hazarded a guess at approval. "The shift managers are happy with your progress. You’re gaining a reputation for being willing to do hard work for little compensation.”

I shrugged. "There's this little voice in the back of my head telling me I'm just dead weight if I'm not useful." My gaze met his for the first time, and I saw a test in those dreamy blue eyes of his. "It's right, too," I added, my lips twisting automatically into a rueful smile. "I don't have any useful skills outside of a fight—and we haven’t really had any fights yet, so I’ve been downright useless."

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of loud conversation from the watchmen's table. Marco returned my steady gaze, the expression on his face one of quiet appraisal.

"You're right about that," he said eventually. "You don’t have a lot that makes you useful to us. You can fight, but good fighters are a dime a dozen in the New World. Your amnesia makes you a risk, because even beyond the possibility that you might be lying, we have no way of knowing what role you played in the world before you lost your memories. Just by existing, you might be putting us in mortal danger. The sort of world we live in is not one that forgives easily."

Something about hearing the words out in the open made me feel trapped, like a rabbit in a snare. The truths dropped, leaden, into my gut, the way I’d been afraid of when it was only me thinking them. I felt hollow, and a tightness rose in my chest that I recognized belatedly as fear.

Right then, Marco interrupted my rising tide of thoughts. "Can I ask, what are you thinking now? I can't tell, you see, and that's rare. You've got one hell of a poker face."

"I don't have the emotional capacity to answer," I said. My voice sounded flat and calm—a subconscious wall rose around my thoughts, separating me from the emotions. The calm logic that was _me_ pushed through my body; my heartbeat slowed, the sick feeling in my stomach receded beneath a mile of stone, and I wanted to smile, so I did. “Do you think I’m lying?”

Marco raised his eyebrows skyward. Given his facial structure, the expression came out kind of ridiculous.

“I think that if you are,” he said eventually, with the air of a man weighing his words carefully before he spoke them, “then you’re one of the best liars I’ve ever seen. Which would be worrying, but also somewhat fascinating. And if you are not, which on the balance of evidence seems to be true, then you are a uniquely fascinating enigma and I find myself somewhat invested in wondering what the truth ultimately is.”

The stone in my heart drew back for a moment. I held the smile, then let it drop away. “I don’t know what the truth is any more than you do. But, if you’re offering, it would be nice to have help.”

“I suppose I was,” said Marco. “Pops told you he won’t help anyone who doesn’t try to help themselves, but I look at you and I see someone who took that deal to heart. Risky choice or not, it makes me feel better about having you on this ship.”

I understood. That was the kicker—I so rarely understood people, but I'd just had the first conversation that wasn't factual in the way I needed to comprehend it, and yet I'd still understood it.

That was a happy thought. I smiled again, this time slow and small and true.

"So," Marco began again, tapping his fingers rhythmically against the table, "I said you've got no skill that makes you useful to us." Then his smile broadened, and he added, "Yet."

I blinked. “Yet?”

"You're willing to work—you said it yourself—and you're willing to learn. In time you'll have all Neroli's knowledge of sailing, and experience to go along with it. That alone will make you useful to us -- _if_ you have the will to work to that end. Pops wouldn't have kept you if he hadn't seen potential in you. He's good at picking out the possibilities in people, and once he's got you, he'll draw out that hidden potential. It's a win/win situation for everyone involved, really."

His fingers abruptly ceased their drumming on the table. His blue eyes drooped further closed, and he leaned forward across the table, his smile turning confidential. "So, for now, Loki, do you have a dream? A goal to work for, in any other words?"

I opened my mouth, and the words tumbled out of their own volition. "There's too much to say, and too many directions to name. I just want to know… stuff. My mind feels empty right now, and I'm trying to fill it up. It being empty scares me." A sudden thought struck me, and I laughed out loud. "Like an empty pantry might scare Ace! Minds are made for thoughts, and when they're empty it's far too easy to zone out and do nothing. Then when I wake up, there's so much to be done that I haven't been doing 'cause I've been bouncing around inside my own head. I feel like I have to relearn how to live in this world."

Marco grinned at me. "There's your problem, then," he said, folding his arms and nodding decisively. "You're practical. A rare breed among our sort of pirates, I have to say. The practical ones tend to end up jaded and too disillusioned to go chasing off after dreams like we do. But if you can walk the edge between practicality and hanging onto the reasons you went to sea in the first place, then you'll go far, Loki." He blinked, and lifted his head, blue eyes turning out to the portholes at the other end of the cabin. "Was there any reason beside wanting to know of your past?"

I answered without thinking again. "I had to.”

“What do you mean by that?” The look in his eye told me he already knew. But it was something I had to answer, as much for myself as for him.

“It felt like I should be out here,” I explained, flattening my palm against the table. “Every time I looked at the sea, something in the back of my mind pushed me toward the horizon. It would have driven me out here sooner or later, whether I’d wanted to or not.”

“No-one can resist the ocean if it calls to you like that,” Marco sighed, leaning back in his chair and staring over my head, into the middle distance. “In the old times they used to ascribe it to sirens, calling to a man until he went insane with the longing and jumped into the sea.”

“I don’t quite want to jump ship,” I said, shaking my head. “I just want to cross the horizon. Being out here on the sea is enough to make it less… demanding, I guess. Not so all-important. I can think about other stuff if I want to, these days.”

Marco gave me a content, knowing smile. “I know. I get that way sometimes as well. It’s not love, but it’s something parallel. I suggest talking to Ace if you want to commiserate.”

He sighed again, and pushed himself to his feet, dragging his fingers through his funny clump of hair. “Like I said, we’ll be meeting up with Third and Fourth today, so long as the weather holds. You’ll get a break from work from about eleven; we’re putting the experienced sailors on from then.”

“Sounds good,” I said, smiling to myself. I’d heard a lot about the third and fourth divisions in the last few days—everyone was gleefully anticipating the coming meeting. “See you later,” I added as he drifted away from the table, heading back towards the group of watchmen.

Marco glanced back over his shoulder, and nodded. “You too, Loki.”


	7. we could stay another day

-  _we could stay another day_ -

True to Marco’s word, the other younger sailors and I got the afternoon off.

There wasn’t much point in resting -- too much anticipation in the air. It felt like a storm waiting to break, static crawling up the back of my neck every time someone walked past. I hid in the hold with my notebook, drawing crates and lanterns, until the cry of “Ship ahoy!” went up and everyone who wasn’t busy sailing the ship flooded up onto the Moby Dick’s two main decks.

A dot on the horizon slowly coalesced into a ship. The Bluefin carried the same design as the Moby Dick, only scaled down somewhat; wind billowed in her sails, square-rigged on three masts. Like the Moby, her entire bow became a stylised whale’s head, cutting nimbly through the sea.

She made good progress on a tail wind, sailing wide and approaching from an oblique angle. The Moby turned, and the Bluefin cut her sails, slowing. Gently, she drew closer. Sailors on both ships threw lines across the gap, lashing us together.

From my perch on the Moby Dick’s high foredeck, I looked down, surveying the Bluefin’s deck. Her crew crowded into the available space, hollering and pumping fists in the air.

They were a motley lot—not that we first and second divisioners could claim any better. Though the great majority were men, I spotted a couple of women among their ranks, one working up in the rigging and one tiny girl who stood on the poop deck above the cabin, shouting orders down to the crew. Most of them had a weapon or two—pistols, swords of varying shapes and sizes, knives—tucked away in sashes or jacket linings, typical pirate gear.

There was a distant sort of thump. A man leapt across the gap between the two ships, balancing easily on the Moby’s railing. He grinned out across the massed ranks of pirates on the deck, scanning the deck. “You lot look terrible, as always. Where’s the old man on this fine day?”

“Morning, Thatch,” called Whitebeard from his chair. Several of our pirates called out their own helloes in turn.

Thatch rested his hands on his hips, grin deepening. "Morning, Pops! How's it going?"

"Same as usual," Whitebeard replied, raising his voice above the noise of the waves and the pirates around him. "Hop down, son, before you fall overboard and Kess has to rescue you again."

"Aw, Pops, I was drunk at the time," Thatch argued, mock-insulted, but obeyed regardless. "Since you ask—so kind of you, by the way," he continued as he strode across the deck to stand in the amphitheatre before Whitebeard, "we had an absolutely hellish journey. I'm so glad we're finally here."

"I didn't ask," Whitebeard rumbled, lifting an eyebrow.

Thatch grinned. "Yeah, but I'll pretend you had a sudden attack of compassion at the sight of our long-lost faces. See, first we hit a hurricane, one of those once-in-a-lifetime dealies that seem to turn up every month or so. Gave us all a good thrashing, ruined some good booty—” here he slapped his own rump, to a burst of laughter from our guys— “and tossed us out in front of a convoy of Marines, which we valiantly fought off. And then we ran out of rum."

Pops snorted. "No man should be deprived of rum." Thatch looked hopefully up at him, and he continued, "But that doesn't give you permission to go racing off and raiding my stores now."

Thatch visibly wilted. "You're a harsh master, Captain."

His clothes were neat and stylish for a pirate: a white jacket with a short yellow scarf tied around his neck, pants an equally spotless shade of white, ending at mid-calf. His hair was rusty brown, styled in a neat pompadour, one eyebrow permanently cocked in a quizzical expression. A scar stretched from his left eyebrow down to his cheekbone, doing nothing to offset the sense of mischief that oozed from every ounce of him.

Neroli emerged from the foremast, her job done for the moment. She looked around, caught sight of me, and clambered up to my perch beside the railings.

"That's the fourth-division commander, Thatch," she told me, resting her elbows on the railing and leaning back. Thatch had been joined in front of Pops by Marco and another man, a veritable giant wider in the shoulder than Pops and probably just about as tall. "And that’s Jozu, the third-division commander. I didn't even see him come over.”

I glanced around the deck. More of the Bluefin's crew had boarded; groups formed as friends reunited, casual slaps on the back and merciless ribbing interspersed with genuine hugs and raucous laughter. Ace’s masked friend, Deuce, greeted a big man in a skull mask and a smaller guy with a turban before kneeling to bunt heads with a massive wildcat. Panther stumped around the poop deck, a tiny curly-haired woman perched on his shoulders.

Turning back to Neroli, I gave her a searching look. “So, what's going to happen now?”

Neroli let out a gusty sigh. "For now? Nothing much. Everyone's just catching up. It's been almost four months since we've seen each other."

“Do you see any of your friends?” I asked.

She gave me a look that turned into a fond smile. “I see lots of them. You'll get to know them too, in time.”

I searched for a response, but none were forthcoming. In lieu, I replied with a hesitant smile.

It seemed to be the response Neroli was expecting; her smile grew wider, and she reached up, patting my shoulder. “Just give it time, Loki. You’ll be fine.”

She seemed quite certain. I leaned on her confidence, hoping she was right.

* * *

The lunch club almost doubled in size that night, so at dinnertime we spilled out the door and onto the main deck. A good few others followed us out into the sunset, filling the cool evening air with talk and laughter.

Whitebeard's chair was empty for now, the nurses having persuaded him to go below decks and let them do a long-overdue checkup. We sat near it anyway, knowing he'd return as soon as he thought the nurses had done enough poking and prodding. Marco perched on the railings that spanned the circumference of the amphitheatre, behind and to the left of the great chair, while Ace and Teach sat cross-legged on the lowest terrace and tried to filch each other's food. Destry sat out of arm's reach, leaning back against the side of Whitebeard's chair; Damini, Tad and Kieran lounged in a group in front.

We'd been joined by five of the Bluefin's crew: Jozu and Thatch, the third and fourth division commanders, Thatch's first mate, and two of Jozu's crew. Ace had invited them and others over, but these five were the only takers. Dinner today was lamb and chicken kebabs served in a thick red spicy sauce, messy at the best of times. Around both Teach and Ace, there was a visible splash zone.

I picked a spot on the steps behind them, out of danger, and leant down, prodding Ace’s shoulder. "You know everyone, don't you.”

"Yeah, pretty much." Ace stripped a kebab all at once, chewed and swallowed. "The fleet was all together when I joined, so I met a load of people all at once." He thumped his chest with a fist and coughed, then pointed across the stretch of no-man’s land toward our visitors. “That’s Thatch, Jozu, Kess—Kestrel something—Jimmu and Dollface. They’re good people, even if they’re fuckin’ cowards.”

Thatch raised his eyebrows and brushed some invisible speck of dirt off a spotless white sleeve. “‘Scuse you, Ace, it’s not my fault nobody ever taught you table manners.” He hopped up into Whitebeard’s chair, drawing laughter from the crew around the deck. “Marco, I thought you were trying to civilise this boy. What happened?”

Marco exhaled. “It’s harder than it looks, eh.”

Ace stuck his tongue out, proving Marco’s point. I moved up another step just in case.

Thatch’s first mate—Kestrel—passed his dinner up to him. She was about the same height, copper-skinned and black-haired, clad in a striped orange and yellow tank top and loose dark purple pants that gathered in tight just below the knee. She sat cross-legged on the deck beside Jimmu with her plate in her lap, picking her kebabs apart with one hand. “Ace, you can be a complete pig or you can sit with the big boys. It’s your choice.”

Ace flipped her off with one hand, stuffing his mouth with the other. “Wha’if I want both?”

“You can’t have both,” said Jimmu, grinning as he wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb. He was a stoop-shouldered, slightly duck-footed old sailor with bushy red muttonchops and calluses all over his hands. “It’s the price we pay for authority. Who’s gonna respect a man who can’t stop sprayin’ his dinner everywhere?”

A shadow fell across him—Deuce, flanked by the two pirates I’d seen him with earlier. “Look, if I never managed to teach him to eat properly, you lot haven’t got a chance, Whitebeard Pirates or not.”

Ace swallowed mightily and patted the deck beside him. “Skull! Pinnacle! Come sit with us!”

The little turbaned man grinned. “Not so close, Ace.” He looked us over, then joined Destry’s group beside Whitebeard’s chair. “I haven’t forgotten what you’re like with food.”

Ace groaned, loud and heartfelt. “You’re all so mean. What did I do to deserve this?”

Damini narrowed her eyes at him. “You stole a whole pizza and ran halfway across Lokashiri carrying me on your shoulder.”

“Oh yeah,” said Ace, unrepentant. “Yeah, I forgot about that.”

Thatch leaned over the side of Pops’ chair, offering his hand to Damini. “You have my sympathies,” he said. She blinked, cautious, then shook it.

Deuce and the other man, Skull, sat at the steps on Teach’s other side. We ate without conversation for a few minutes before Thatch took it upon himself to share a detailed account of the Bluefin’s journey. Indeed it was so detailed that he talked himself around in a circle, losing the plot completely with a few choice comments from Ace and Marco (who, I was beginning to suspect, had a well-disguised but mile-wide wicked streak).

Jimmu picked up the slack, wrapping up the sad tale just as Whitebeard emerged from the cabin with a couple of the senior nurses in tow.

"You should be resting now, you know," the blonde nurse chided him, disapprovingly clicking her pen against the back of her clipboard. Her name was Layla, I distantly remembered, and the other woman with the curly black hair was Prosper, Destry’s wife. They both wore short uniform dresses—I wondered where the uniform had come from—and Prosper had a set of leopard-print leggings on beneath the dress, where Layla wore a pair of thigh-high boots.

"I am resting," Pops grunted shortly, stepping into the amphitheater. "Thatch, you brat, what d’you think you're doing in my chair?”

Thatch slipped smoothly down onto the deck. “Keeping it warm for you, of course!”

“Right,” said Whitebeard, drawing out the syllable into a skeptical sigh. “Let me be, Layla; the salt air’ll do me good.”

“If that were the case we would have seen improvement in your lung capacity a long time ago,” said the nurse. She wrote something down, ignoring the look Whitebeard turned on her. “But if you’re determined to ignore medical advice, I’ll have Kanoa bring your ventilator out.”

She turned and stalked back across the deck, her high-heeled boots clicking against the wood. The odd stare followed her long, long legs, but for the most part the crew were too used to the nurses to notice her.

Whitebeard lowered himself into his chair, captain of all he surveyed. Then he coughed—a dry sort of cough, not the wet hacking that brought the nurses running from wherever they were, but enough that Layla shot him a concerned look back over her shoulder.

Pops was sick, was all I knew. The breathing tubes and intravenous lines draped across his massive frame made that much evident. Most of the time people avoided the subject, but I had caught the worried looks that passed from crewmate to crewmate when they thought no-one was looking.

Those same looks were doing a circuit of the deck now. I'd expected the commanders to be the most concerned, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

"Judging from that, I'm sure I don't need to ask how it went," Thatch said, flopping down at Kestrel’s side. He grinned cheekily at Pops, who waved a dismissive hand.

"Same as usual. Lot of talk, not much information. I need a translator to tell me what they're saying sometimes."

“A bit of jargon never hurt anyone,” Marco commented from his perch on the railing. “Here’s your ventilator.”

Whitebeard took the contraption from the nurse, a curvy dark-haired girl, and gave Marco a sharp look. “Says the man who speaks a dozen damn languages. You can translate for me next time, son.”

Snickering loudly, Thatch leaned back against Kestrel’s shoulder. "That reminds me, Pops, we’ve got a nibbler on our flanks.” He frowned in intense concentration. "Now what was the name of the island again?"

"Kiiroen," Jozu supplied. Thatch snapped his fingers and grinned.

"That’s the bunny! Not too far from here in the grand scheme of things.” He exhaled deeply, slipping down onto the deck. “It’s too early in the year to be going to war."

Whitebeard’s eyes narrowed. “Is that so?”

“Unfortunately.” Thatch’s smile slipped away by degrees. “Kiiroen we know for sure. There might have been advances made on the south coast of Motuiti as well, but no definitive ID on that one.”

"They're a relatively new crew—fresh from the West Blue last winter," Jozu put in, resting his massive hands on his knees and leaning forward into the circle. "I got Jimmu to do a bit of looking around. Two captains, and each of them has a bounty over a hundred million. Marine killers, apparently.”

"Both of them have Devil Fruit powers," Jimmu said, nodding slowly. "I spoke to a man who'd seen them in action. One of them reportedly gutted a man just by touching him. No weapons—he just grabbed the man's hand, and according to my source, the guy's belly split open like someone had taken a length of cheesewire to it."

Ace whistled, long and low. “Sounds scary! What about the other one?”

“No information.” Jimmu shrugged, grinning lopsidedly. “You know what it’s like when that happens. She’ll be a real murderer.”

“’She’?” Destry echoed. The third-divisioner nodded, scratching at his muttonchops.

“A real beauty, if her bounty poster is anything to go on. They’re siblings—he’s the killer, she’s the leader. Styles herself a ‘pirate queen’.”

Whitebeard grunted dismissively. "Pirate queen, my ass. Anything else?"

The third-divisioner shook his head. “They were loosely allied with Estes Koen’s armada. Now that he's feeding the fishes, a good few of his underlings went to these guys. They’re rocking a crew of about a hundred and sixty, with two ships and twenty, maybe thirty Devil Fruit Users.”

"All right then." Sinking back in his chair, our captain grinned sharply. "First—you lot haven't seen much action in a while, so I’ll bet you need the exercise. Fourth, you'll go with them. Check out the situation, run the nippers off, I’ll leave the details to you. Check out Motuiti on the way back, make sure they’ve got everything they need.” He turned to Jozu. “Third stays here—we’re going to the aag jaya on Gol Dushan."

“You just want to get drunk,” Thatch accused, propping himself up on his elbows and glaring at Whitebeard. “You’d better save some arak for us or I’ll be heartbroken.”

Whitebeard stabbed a massive finger toward Thatch. “You’re a hundred years too young to be telling me what to do, brat.”

“I’m forty-fuckin’-six, man, I used to pay my taxes!” Thatch pouted spectacularly. “You know what, I think you just don’t want to share.”

Whitebeard grinned. “‘Course I don’t. Maybe a hero would share his booze, but I’m a pirate. I want it all to myself.”

Marco chuckled and hopped off the railing. “We still meeting up at Yaffa in a couple weeks, Pops?”

Whitebeard grunted. “Aye. We’ll race you there, if I don’t drink myself into oblivion first.”

“I’ll take that challenge,” replied Marco, voice as mild as ever. He looked the rest of us over, gave me a beckoning gesture. “Loki, you tell the ladies to pack up. Ace, Tad, give me a hand, we’ll let the guys know. We'll swap ships in half an hour and be ready to go in the morning."

Jozu spoke to Jimmu and Dollface, who stood and headed back across to the Bluefin. “Raring to go, Marco?”

“I’m as susceptible to boredom as anyone,” Marco replied, turning a quick grin on the other commander. “It’s good to have something to do.”

I finished off my kebabs and stood, vaulting the railing with my empty plate in one hand. The older women tended to eat down in the cabins; away from the noise, I’d guessed. I dropped the plate back in the galley and headed below decks.

There were more in the cabin than I had been expecting. Antiope and Sierra played cards with a pair of the younger women over the empty barrel someone had bolted to the floor. Swordswoman Marcinetta Read sharpened and polished her blade. Second divisioners Sorcha and Oanez lurked in their respective hammocks, wrapped in blankets despite the warm weather. Sorcha had been sick; Oanez just liked to sleep. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light that came through the single salt-encrusted porthole, I spotted Rahel Gabre at the back of the room by her puff of curly black hair.

Sierra waved her handful of cards at me. “Come play a round, kid.”

I looked at the pile of coins on the barrel by her other hand, then back to her glinting orange eyes. “No, thank you.”

Antiope chuckled softly. “Good choice.” She stared intently at her hand, then sighed and played a red card. “I’m out. Are you here for something, Loki?”

I nodded, let go of the doorframe and stepped into the cabin. “Orders from the commanders. First and Fourth are swapping ships with Third. Marco wants to do it tonight so we can leave early tomorrow."

"So First gets all the fun, huh?" Sorcha of the second division croaked from her hammock. She’d picked up a head cold a couple of days ago, and the coughing had rendered her nearly voiceless. 

Sierra waved a lazy hand in Sorcha’s direction. "Hey, you guys got the last fight. It's our turn to have some fun.” She collected her winnings from the two remaining players and rose, folding cards and coins into a purse hanging from her belt. “Give me a good fight, yes please.”

Antiope sighed as she slid out of her chair, settled on the floor and pulled an ancient, battered chest from shadows by the cabin wall. "Say goodbye to a good night's sleep, ladies."

"How come?" I followed their lead in gathering my things, still safely stored in that knapsack we’d brought from Carolinge. There was so little in it; my notebook, my pencil, a woollen wraparound jacket I hadn’t yet worn. On the bright side, that meant I'd travel light.

Antiope gave me a knowing grin, the scars on her face paling. "The Bluefin's a smaller ship. The waves affect it a little more."

Footsteps thumped down the hall, and Neroli swept into the cabin, Verna in her wake. “I hear we’re swapping ships. Kairos told me there’s trespassers needing kicked off our land.”

“Some place called Kiiroen,” I supplied, carefully enunciating the unfamiliar name.

Rahel shoved her storage chest underneath Sorcha’s hammock with a booted foot, a change of clothes hanging from her fist. “Who’d want to take over that place? There’s nothing there.”

“That could be the appeal,” said Antiope. “Not much of a guard, and we weren’t likely to notice until they had enough of a stronghold on the place to start making trouble.”

“It never ends.” Sierra grinned and made her way to the door, giving my shoulder a rough slap on her way past. "If you’re ready, let’s go."

Obediently, I followed her up and out onto the main deck, where First and Third gathered in the evening light on our respective ships. Gangplanks had been set up between the Moby Dick and the Bluefin, and the ropes tethering the ships to each other had been tightened, pulling them closer.

There was no nice and orderly set time at which we all began to move onto the other ship—it just happened all at once. People ran out of patience with the slow lines and abandoned the planks, jumping across the gap. I heard a splash as someone fell in, and then another as someone who could swim went in after them.

And somehow, from nowhere, there came a laugh, that echoed through the crowd and gained in volume as it went. I grinned as it passed through my ears. It was a happy sound, an amused sound, and it shared that feeling with everyone.

My chance arrived. I scrambled across the plank and stood still on the deck of the Bluefin for a moment. The deck swelled noticeably beneath my feet, a sensation simultaneously strange and familiar.

I moved out of the way of the pirates coming across behind me, looking around for a familiar face. I spotted Jimmu and Dollface heading the other way to the Moby Dick. Tad Russ crawled over the railings with the aid of a rope, seawater dripping from clothes plastered slick against his skin, and flopped gasping to the deck.

A wiry arm looped around my waist. Neroli staggered into me, laughing hard, a woman I had never met attached to her other arm. Taken by surprise, I slid into an instinctual fighting stance.

“Found you! G’day, apprentice, what’re you doing out here?”

Relaxing somewhat, I lowered my arms. “I’m figuring out what to do next. Looking for someone to tell me what to do, maybe.”

Neroli snorted. “That’s not very pirate-like of you.”

The new woman laughed, a soft, breathy noise. “Nero, be nice.”

“Of course, my rose.” Neroli gave us both a one-armed hug. “Loki, meet Kairos, my sort-of girlfriend. Kairos, this is Loki, my apprentice.”

Kairos looked me up and down, appraising. She was short, probably of a height with my collarbones, and had very curly hair that fanned out from her head into a wispy red-brown cloud. Freckles covered her face and forearms, disappearing beneath the lacy cuffs of her blouse.  “I’ve heard that name before.”

Neroli glanced at me, then back to Kairos. “Do you know her?”

Kairos laughed, her slanted brown eyes creasing with good humor. “Never met her before in my life. I recognise the name, but not the person it’s attached to.”

“I don’t remember my real name,” I explained, sidling out of Neroli’s grip. Hugs could be nice, but extended bodily contact made my skin crawl. “Damini gave me this one on Carolinge. It felt like it fit.”

Kairos snapped her fingers. “The giants’ prince is called Loki. That’s where I know it from.”

“Aaaah,” said Neroli. She draped herself over Kairos’ shoulders, frowning thoughtfully. “You’re from quite close to Elbaph, aren’t you?”

Kairos smiled. Her eyes cut away, looking back at me. “Lighthouse Island, on the edge of the Turiak Triangle. You really don’t remember your real name?”

I shrugged, emptiness closing in around my shoulders like a cloak. “I don’t remember anything.”

Sierra emerged out of the crowd then, a welcome distraction. She slung her half-empty bag over one shoulder, scowling and flicking a stray auburn braid out of her face. “You lot, I’m lost. Where do we dump our stuff?”

“There’s no set place,” said Kairos. “We girls don’t have our own cabin on this ship, so you’ll have to get used to the guys bouncing around. Just find an empty hammock and claim it before someone else does. ”

“Sounds like my old crew.” Sierra grabbed my shoulder and propelled me into the crowd, laughing wickedly. I went, grateful for the excuse to forget. “Come on, Loki, let’s go find a berth before all the good ones get taken.”

* * *

The deck was silent and empty when I emerged from the cabin that night. The sky was clear; uncountable millions of stars splashed across the arch of the heavens, shining noiselessly down on us. The moon languished low on the starboard horizon, bright and full. I spotted the silhouettes of three watchmen up in the crow’s nest, outlined flat against the stars.

I shivered, hugged my arms close in against my body. A breeze raised goosebumps on my arms. I wished I'd had the foresight to grab my jacket as well as my notebook when I'd left the cabin.

It was one of those nights so bright it seemed like it imitated day. Everything was coated in moonlight, quicksilver and cold.

The light bothered me more than it ought.

I stepped backward, leaned against the cabin wall. The weatherbeaten timbers caught at my clothes with little splinters, rough against my hands when I reached back to steady myself. The wavelets lapping against the hulls of the two ships came echoing up between them, somehow only deepening the silence between each little sound. My breath issued like smoke from my mouth.

There was a brazier by the door that led into the galley. I moved in close the flames, hunching my shoulders against the cold night. It brought forth a question in my mind: what exactly did I think I was doing?

I'd gone to sleep at my usual time that evening. Where it usually took me an hour or so to fully fall asleep, today I had lain awake long past that time, my muscles thrumming with misplaced energy. The cabins on the Bluefin were furnished with bunk beds two and three levels high, a very different experience to sleeping in hammocks. No matter how I lay, sleep would not come.

Somewhere around two in the morning I gave up. I’d clambered quietly out of my bunk, dug my notebook out of my still-bundled things, and come up to the deck in hopes of finding some sort of solace.

Alas, there was only a cool wind blowing. I fumbled with the tie around my hair and dragged it out, running my fingers through the greasy strands and combing it down over my neck. It would make an adequate scarf for as long as I stayed out here.

Frustration is a hard emotion to conquer. The cold wind, the whispering of the waves against the ships; everything felt like spiteful laughter.

Running away is an acceptable option when you have no other choice. I turned and fled into the Bluefin's galley.

It was almost deserted. Not surprising, considering the early hour. A couple of cooks clattered around in the kitchen, finishing up on last-minute projects, and Fourth's navigator sat at a well-lit table by the wall, scanning the maps and reams of notes scattered across the tabletop. I steered well clear of him—in his eyes was the glint of a man possessed by his work.

I found a table near the back of the room, on the edge of the circle of light cast by one of the lamps that flickered on the wall. Dragging a chair into the position I wanted, I sat down with my back to the wall, facing out into the galley so I could keep an eye on things. I tucked my feet up onto the chair, bracing my notebook on my thighs and flipping it open.

At this point, three weeks and six days out from the alley in Tusanto, the notebook was almost three-quarters full. On a good day, I could cover three pages on both sides with writing and drawings. It hadn’t been a thick notebook to start with. I read back through the pages I’d used, finding no wasted space. On occasion, I’d flipped the book on its side to continue writing in the margins.

I counted the remaining pages, and something lurched in my chest. There weren’t many.

My pencil dipped to the page, tapped against the paper near the top. It left behind a faint graphite dot. I breathed in, held it, then slowly exhaled. An image came to my mind: the view of Tusanto from the bedroom in Lahaiyla’s house, looking down over the city and out into that deep-water harbour.

Pencil on paper is a poor substitute for the real thing. Frustrated, I left the landscape after only a few strokes of the pencil. Pressure built in my mind. I touched the pencil to the paper again and gritted my teeth. Without thinking, a spiral appeared in the middle of the page. I added another, branching off from the first spiral, and others beside it. Spirals would do for now.

A shadow fell across me, spilling across the paper and covering my spirals in darkness. I looked up.

"You're awake late," observed Marco, the hint of a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. "What’s up, Loki?"

"I could say the same to you," I retorted, my frustration boiling over all of a sudden. "I can't sleep. Where'd you come from?"

"I've just been on watch," he explained, pulling out a chair and flopping gracelessly into it. "How's that for an excuse. If it helps at all, it's not unusual to have trouble sleeping when you're on a new ship, eh. Sometimes your body takes a while to adjust."

"That's a relief," I said, frowning down at my book. "I _like_ sleeping."

Marco grinned. "You found yourself a good berth?"

The pressure in my head began to fade. “Yeah, I guess.” Sierra and I had bunked down in one of the bigger cabins above the gun deck, sharing the room with Ace, Tad, Neelam, two other first-divisioners and fifteen fourth-divisioners. So far as I could tell, I’d managed not to wake anyone up as I fled the room.

I put my pencil to the paper again. Marco watched, still and silent. I felt myself grow calmer, as if he'd wrapped that serene presence of his around me and let it sink in.

When he spoke again, it was considered and deliberate. "What is that book?"

I added another spiral to the mass. "It's just a notebook. Damini bought it for me in Carolinge. Said I might like something to keep my memories in, since my own head doesn’t seem to be too trustworthy.”

“Sounds a practical idea,” Marco commented. I half expected him to ask to see my notes, but he instead went off on a different tack. “Carolinge is relatively safe, as the New World goes. It wouldn’t be my first choice of dumping spots for someone I didn’t want to carry around any more, but if I cared about their welfare, it might be a thought.”

I gave him a sharp look. "You say that like I'm a mystery, or a puzzle to be unraveled.”

He met my gaze, and smiled. "Perhaps. I like puzzles. And I do mean what I said: someone deliberately left you on one of the safest islands in the New World. Why they did so is another question."

Another spiral. I drew a careful circle around the mass, then filled in the gaps with hatching..

Marco watched my pencil move along the page. "What are you drawing?"

I flipped my notebook around to show him. "Just spirals."

"I see." He reached out, traced the curve of the encasing circle with a fingertip. "It looks almost like a Devil Fruit."

"It does?" I turned the book around again and glared at the page. "Have you seen a Devil Fruit?"

"You could say that,” he said, lazy blue eyes glimmering with amusement. “I’ve seen quite a few, one of which I ate."

 _That_ got my attention. I closed my book and slapped it down on the table, crossing my arms and frowning at Marco. "What sort did you eat?"

"Tori-Tori no Mi, Phoenix model. It was a very long time ago." He chuckled quietly, meeting my eyes and holding them. "It’s a Mythical Zoan, very rare, very valuable. Don’t ask me where I got it from -- I don’t think the place exists anymore."

"I wasn’t planning on it," I said.. "What's a phoenix?"

He told me. I listened intently.

I don't think I'd grasped the full potential of any given Devil Fruit before then. Sure, Ace's fire was flashy, and powerful, and destructive, but if what Marco was telling me was true, then he was functionally immortal.

A question formed on my lips. "Poison gas?" 

Belatedly it occurred to me that perhaps I should have explained my thought process, but Marco seemed to divine my intent anyway. His mouth quirked upward at the corners. "Most poisonous gases are heavier than air, to be effective in a non-confined space. I’m a bird; I fly."

"Drowning, maybe?"

Marco gave a short laugh. He straightened, his jacket falling open, the cross and crescent tattoo that marked his chest dark under the torchlight. "That one's a danger for all Devil Fruit users. We lose our strength in the water, and unless our power is constantly active, then we lose those as well. If I fell into the ocean, I'd be just a normal human. One who couldn't swim, at that."

I remembered the question Damini had posed when she'd first explained Devil Fruits to me. "How come so many Devil Fruit users become sailors of whatever kind, then? It doesn't seem very practical."

He rested his forearms on the table, lacing his fingers together. "Not all sailors without Devil Fruits know how to swim, either. If you hit a storm out in the middle of the ocean—you still haven't seen a good New World storm, either—and you get washed overboard, there isn’t much hope  regardless of your swimming skills. Humans have to breathe air, or else we die. Most sailors know how to prevent themselves falling overboard in the meantime. The methods work well enough that even Devil Fruit users can make use of them."

I glanced down at my notebook. The spirals were light enough that I could have erased them and reused the space, but the thought didn’t sit right.

“Why are we going to this island, Kiiroen?” I asked, half to distract myself. “Rahel implied there wasn’t much of anything on it. Could they use it to attack us, or what?”

"That’s not quite the concern." Marco reached out, tapped my notebook with a long forefinger. "Can I borrow this? It'll make the explanation easier."

I nodded. "Go ahead."

"Alright." He turned the book toward himself, sketching a long, narrow rectangle across the page. "Here in the New World, the oceans belong to everyone. This is widely agreed fact, I suspect because it’s more effort than it’s worth to enforce any ownership. The islands, however, belong to whoever is strong enough to keep them." He added a few dots to the rectangle to illustrate the point. "The islands that belong to you are your territory; no other crew is allowed to pillage or claim tithes, or whatever else you feel like inflicting on the residents. It's generally considered the done thing for other crews to ask permission to visit them, although if the island is large or central enough, you might have to forego that privilege for the sake of sheer practicality. Currently, the four pirates with the largest combined territories are Pops, Red-Haired Shanks, Big Mom and Kaidou. Collectively, they're known as the Four Emperors, or the Yonkou to some."

He blocked out several shapes within the rectangle, writing a name in each. Pops, I found I was pleased to note, had the biggest territory.

"The Emperors and their allies control most of the New World between them. The lesser crews ordinarily squabble over what's left – but sometimes one will take it into his head to… test the boundaries. When that happens, everyone else sits up and pays attention. Inaction is a sign of weakness. People exploit weaknesses. If you can’t be bothered to protect the smallest, least important parts of your territory, you’ll soon have people going after more valuable parts. That's how a powerful crew gets spread too thin.”

He paused, frowning down at the notebook. “When I was still new to the world of piracy, years and years ago, one of the Yonkou became complacent about looking after his territory. He let a couple of small crews take over some of his islands, because yeah, it wasn’t a big deal and he had bigger issues to worry about. When he let them get away with no punishment, all the other crews in the area got together and carved up the rest of his territory. He fought battle after battle after battle, and won them all, but soon he and his crew started to get tired. In the end, the Marines swooped in.”

“The entire crew was defeated, wasn’t it?” I leant over the table towards him, so intent on the story I’d forgotten where I was. He nodded, and a flash of a dark smile slipped onto his lips.

“They were. Divide and conquer, that’s a motto worth remembering in this world.” He blinked, refocusing on the diagram in my notebook.

"The Emperors each have their own ways of dealing with trespassers. Kaidou goes in with all guns firing, wipes out whoever dared set foot on his island, usually destroying half the island in the process. We’re a bit less draconian—if the other crew has worth, or if part of it is smart enough to repent, we’ll absorb them. If not, we destroy them. Big Mom does something similar. Red-Hair on the other hand goes in with a shipload of rum and turns the whole thing into a party, after which he counts the other crew as allies or friends, and they're usually too scared or hungover to disagree."

I chuckled softly. Marco had rolled his eyes, but there was respect in his voice. It seemed the method was an effective one. "So if everything goes right at the island, we won't just be protecting Pops' position as a Yonkou, we might be gaining allies as well?"

"Exactly." Marco smiled at me, the expression in his blue eyes one I was reasonably confident reading as satisfaction. "Pops knows the politics, but in truth there’s another reason to do what we do. He's been around for long enough that he has friends on the islands in our territory, or he has friends who have friends on the islands. He protects them because he can, and because he wants to."

He passed the notebook and pencil back to me. I took it wordlessly, retrieved the pencil and began writing notes around the map Marco had sketched. Down the bottom of the page, in all capital letters, I wrote 'PIRATICAL POLITICS'.

Once I'd written down everything, I looked up, mouth open and questions ready, and paused. Marco had vanished.

I sighed again, closing the notebook. Suddenly I felt tired, somehow older than I had before.

Quietly, I stood, and padded out of the galley.

The night was different, now. The wheel of time and space turned slowly. I blinked, and the stars I'd seen before shifted across the sky, moving west. The moon rose above the horizon, and shrank.

I wandered around to the stern, climbed up to the poop deck and leaned against the back of the raised cabin, staring out across the water. There was nothing to see that I hadn't seen before, but that was all as it should be. It gave me space to think.

Some abstract drive took hold of me. I padded slowly over to the railing, and hopped up onto it, balancing carefully.

The ocean beneath the ship dipped and rolled, and I rose and fell with it. I found my equilibrium for a split second, fixing that sense of balance in my mind before a sharper wave sent me tumbling to the deck. I landed on my feet, bracing my hands against the weatherbeaten timbers. Then I tried again.

It took me nine tries total to get used to the movement of the waves. On the last, I found that one perfect moment where everything aligned and stretched it out, balancing steadily on the ship's railing, arms hanging unused at my sides.

Buoyed with success, I took a step forward towards the bow, and a rogue wave again pitched me off balance. I bounced off the railing on my way down, sprawled painfully on the deck, blinking up at the starlit sky.

It was just luck I hadn't gone the other way, I suppose. I didn't know if I could swim—perhaps an oversight, given my current occupation—and I really didn't want to find out now, when there was nobody close at hand to rescue me if necessary.

But my experiments with balance had done the trick. I levered myself upright. The manic energy was gone.

I took the long route back to the cabin, working away the little aches and pains that my tumbles had given me. It took me another long hour to fall asleep, but this time it was a real sleep, sound and dreamless. I didn’t wake until past dawn.


	8. knock down your doors

_\- knock down your doors -_

Three sleepless nights in a row bore fruit in the form of niggling aches in my neck and wrists, a persistent slight headache, and dark marks like bruises beneath my eyes. I waited patiently, hoping that Marco’s assurances would be proven right, but by the third morning I was relying on the cooks’ hangover cure to wake me up. 

Neroli found me in the galley a little after dawn. She took one look at me, and promptly gave me the day off. “You look like you’ve crawled out of a dungeon.”

Harsh words, but not inaccurate. I peered down into the mug I held, full of steaming, stringent black tea, and a pale, straggly-haired apparition stared back at me.

Neroli patted my shoulder. “Get some rest,” she said, smiling. “I think you need it.”

She left. I exhaled in a rush. 

Napping the day away was not an option. I’d tried it a couple of times; it took a long time to fall asleep, if I even managed it, and I invariably woke feeling marginally worse than before. I’d managed my work yesterday—if nothing else it had been a distraction from the fatigue that had settled into my bones. I’d been hoping today would be more of the same.

I tossed the last of my tea back, grimacing as the bitter liquid prickled the sides of my tongue, then got to my feet. If nothing else, I had my notebook.

Returning to the cabin, I slowed, pausing in the hallway outside. Muffled shouting came through the walls, pounding footsteps and crashes like someone was fighting in there. The closer I got, the more I rethought my plan. Whoever was doing the shouting sounded  _ pissed _ .

The door burst open just as I reached it. Ace tumbled out, half-running, half-falling, as if he'd been thrown. He thumped into the opposite wall and bounced off, quickly regaining his footing.

"Go work off that energy!" shouted a voice that sounded very much like Tad, and the door slammed shut, leaving Ace and I alone in the hallway.

"Yeah, yeah," Ace grumbled, making a rude gesture at the closed door. "I see how it is."

"What did you do?" I asked, trying (and succeeding, I think) to raise one eyebrow independently of the other. “Tad sounds pissed.”

He turned his head, and a grin snuck back onto his face. “It was an accident, I told him, but Tadpole isn't great in the mornings, he needs his coffee to function. Hey, do you think he'd forgive me if I got him some?”

It was almost impossible to get a straight answer out of Ace on the first try. "Maybe, but  _ what _ did you do?" 

He gently rubbed his bruised forehead. "I was trying to kill a spider, 'cause we all know Thatch is absolutely terrified of them and I think I might die laughing if I see him running away from one again." Then he added, almost as an afterthought, "And I might've kicked Tad in the head."

I shook my head, made an executive decision and headed back up the hallway. “Coffee might be a good peace offering, but I'd say wait for the headache to go down first.”

“His or mine?” Ace asked, following me out onto the main deck. 

I gave him a sharp look. By the lopsided grin on his face, he was being a smartass.

At least he was fully dressed—though for Ace, this meant he wore his hat, his shorts and his boots, the knife on his hip and and the strings of red beads around his neck and his right wrist. Rarely did he wear anything else.

"Don't you want breakfast?" I asked, nodding toward the galley door. As applied to Ace, the idea seemed completely alien, but he surprised me then for the second time that morning.

"Well, they don't have the good stuff out at this time, and besides, I've already eaten. I've got a stash under my pillow in case I wake up in the night and want something to eat. If I don't, I have to eat it all in the morning, otherwise it goes bad and the guys complain about the smell."

"I see," I said, lying through my teeth. Ace's love affair with food had apparently reached new heights while I wasn't looking.

It was a clear morning, a few wispy clouds scudding across the northern horizon. Seagulls called, and a gannet folded its wings and shot beneath the waves. The sun—bright and strong even this early in the morning—glinted off the surface of the ocean. Small waves slapped against the hull, leaving faint streaks of foam behind.

Then the dawn silence was broken by the ringing of the ship's bell.

I started violently, stepping backward and banging my heel into the ship's railing. Biting back a curse, I moved out into clear space again, trying to look everywhere at once. I'd heard the bell on the Moby Dick a grand total of once, when a Marine ship had been sighted on the horizon a couple of days out from Lokashiri. One toll signaled an approaching ship, two was a possible enemy, and three meant a hostile ship.

I counted four peals of the great bronze bell. That told everyone on board to prepare for battle.

Ace moved over to the railing on the port side of the ship. He leapt up onto the railings, gathered himself and jumped again, flames licking around his heels. Catching hold of the lower spar on the mainsail with one hand, he hung there, shielding his eyes with his free hand and peering into the bank of low sea fog off that side.

Then he gave a snort of laughter. “Oh boy, it's these assholes.”

There was a ship in the fog, rapidly growing clearer through the morning haze. It was featureless as yet, but I'd have bet money it was another pirate vessel. The Marines’ ships were solid and heavily armored, cutting very different silhouettes. This ship was a tall ship, built for speed above all else.

Ace let himself drop back to the deck. "Man, these guys never give up."

A reply came from just behind my shoulder in Marco’s distinctive light baritone. "You have to give them points for perseverance, eh." 

I bit back a decidedly un-stoic squeak. You’d be forgiven for thinking he had a  _ thing  _ for sneaking up on people.

"Yeah, but how many times does this make it? Four? Once is enough for most people!" Ace shook his head. "I'm starting to think these guys are just plain dumb."

Marco raised his eyebrows. “You're one to talk.”

“Technically that was just the one time,” Ace shot back. He grabbed his right hand and cracked his knuckles, eyes fixed on the approaching ship. “You guys did sail off with me, after all.”

"Who are these guys?” I asked, taking mental notes at the speed of light. “Are they enemies?”

"These guys!” Ace exclaimed, turning to me and jabbing a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the approaching ship. “I never thought it was possible for a whole crew to be dumb—I mean, you'd think that at least one person would have a healthy dose of common sense—"

"And that person would not be you," Marco interjected smoothly, leaning casually against the ship's railing. Ace glared at him.

"Shut up, you. Loki, these guys proved me wrong. They have a sheep on their flag!"

"Mountain goat," Marco corrected, grinning. "And why is that the first example of their stupidity you mention, eh, Ace?"

Ace waved his hand dismissively. "A pirate flag is supposed to be  _ frightening. _ Who's gonna be frightened by a sheep? Sure, they attack us every other month, and sure, they always lose horribly, but that might just be too much optimism. But a sheep? That's just dumb."

He had a point, to be honest. A pirate flag was a warning and a boast just as much as a badge of identification for its crew. 

"I see. So how do we deal with them?"

Marco's grin grew wider. "The wind is just right for a fly-by, I think. We'll send some of you awake ones onto their ship and let you have some fun, then come back around and collect you on the next pass."

As he spoke, the Bluefin lurched underfoot, swinging around to face the approaching ship. I staggered, spreading my feet apart further in search of balance. The sails overhead creaked and billowed out as they filled with the brisk wind, propelling us forward through the waves.

"That ought to do it," Marco said, watching the gap between our hull and theirs grow smaller. "Alright! Hands on the cannons, be ready but do not fire! Anyone who's been awake for longer than twenty minutes, go to the port rail and prepare to board!"

A ragged roar went up from the assembled pirates. From somewhere up in the fore rigging, Thatch added his own call. "Remember, try not to kill any of 'em! They're too cute to kill!"

"What makes them cute?" I asked, following Ace up to the railing. The gap between the ships closed fast. Adrenaline surged through my veins; I felt fully awake for the first time in days.

Ace shrugged. "Who knows? It's just Thatch," he said, as though that explained everything. Perhaps it did. "You planning to fight?"

I nodded, wrapping my hands around a boarding rope. "Of course. What do they call it—trial by fire? I need to test myself in a battle situation."

"Sailors call it ‘seeing the kraken’. What's with that last sentence?" he asked with a grin. "You're almost starting to sound like Marco."

There was no time to answer. With a rushing noise, the hull slicing through the waves, the other ship was upon us. As a wave, a tide, the Whitebeard Pirates swept across the railing and down onto the deck of the other ship. I jumped the railing and pushed off, swinging across the gap and dropping five feet to the smaller vessel.

The noise of battle struck me all at once. Screaming, clashes of swords, the sharp crack of gunshots and the boom of one, two cannon shots before the Bluefin was past and the fight was on. 

Fire bloomed into a pillar on the forecastle, where Ace had found a worthy opponent. A man in front of me pulled two flash grenades from his pocket, lobbed them into the open door to the gun deck. Thatch drew a pair of sabers and waded into the fray.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I spun and danced backwards, kicking up and out. Bone cracked as my foot slammed into the underside of someone's shoulder. I felt something give under the pressure. A swordsman wearing the mountain-goat symbol of the enemy turned his back to me. I ducked around a man swinging a black iron mace and lunged forward, tackling the swordsman. He stumbled forward, and one of my crewmates ran him through.

This was a very different situation to a one-on-one sparring match. My instinct screamed at me to find an enemy and take him down, but killing intent tickled at my senses every second, forcing me to divide my attention. And with no weapons of my own save for my fists, I was at a considerable disadvantage.

The sense of danger again closed in on me. I spun to face this new opponent, a huge fat man with an impressive walrus moustache. He sneered at me and raised a pistol. I felt rather than saw a gap in the melee to my right, and dodged. A bullet tracked past my ear, the pistol’s muzzle smoking. I dove forward, slamming my fist into his gut.

Pain shot through my hand, radiating up through my knuckles and wrist. It was like punching a brick wall. He cast an open-handed slap at me; I ducked and he caught me a glancing blow on my shoulder. I made a wordless grunt of pain and pulled back. 

He cocked the gun unsteadily and fired again, but his aim went wide. I danced in close and kicked, catching him just above the knee. His leg folded like paper, and someone behind me shot him in the head.

I moved onwards through the battle, gasping for breath. The air stank of smoke and iron, the taste of blood thick on my tongue.

Something solid slammed into my back, shoving me into a messy corner of the deck. Ropes tangled around my bare feet, tripping and dragging me down. A woman with a knife came for me, her eyes wide and crazed. I fought free of the ropes and slid out of her reach. 

Suddenly we were in the clear space near the side of the ship—out the corner of my eye, I spotted the Bluefin turning, her sails white against the brilliant blue ocean.

In the middle of the battle, something went still. I felt it curling on the back of my shoulders and neck. Maybe the woman with the knife did too.

An explosion pressed the air tight. Fire billowed up from a massive hole in the forecastle. Shrapnel flew through the air, splinters of wood and lengths of twisted iron, dismembered bodies.

Something hit me square in the chest. The impact lifted me up off my feet. I hung in midair for a fraction of a second, weightless and falling. My lower back struck something solid and my world inverted as the momentum flipped me backwards. I saw blue sky and sun, the horizon, and then the ocean hit me hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs.

I sank beneath the waves, and suddenly it was as if the adrenaline of battle had never flooded through my veins. The exhaustion of the past three days returned with a vengeance. My limbs turned to lead, too heavy to move. I gasped for breath, and water rushed into my lungs. 

Limp and helpless, I sank fast. Little bubbles rushed out of my mouth, vanishing upward. The water dimmed around me, as if the empty dark world I’d escaped in that alley in Tusanto reached out to claim me once more. Sight vanished; the cool press of the water all around me followed it to nothingness. The distorted sound of battle in the water went quiet. I let myself go and succumbed to the darkness.

Then, a sudden, sharp pain. Light surrounded me once more. The world was bright—too bright.

Sensation flooded my body. I choked on the water still in my lungs, retching with the force of my coughing. Tears leaked from my eyes. Coughing turned to wheezing, pain reverberating through my chest. I fought for control over myself, slowed the coughing and took a deep, sobbing breath. Sweet, fresh air flooded into me, and I swear I'd never smelled anything better. 

Strong arms wrapped around my torso, lifting me up off the deck. My rescuer turned me onto my side, tucking my arms up by my face. I lost control of my lungs again, coughing up brine. Between spasms I caught sight of my rescuer’s face—one of the fourth-division guys in my cabin. 

The shadows edging my vision began to recede. I lay on a deck spattered with blood and less fortunate things, little splinters and gunpowder char sticking to the drying mess. The ship was listing badly, smoke rising in a thick column from the forecastle. People gathered around me and my erstwhile hero, our crewmates. We seemed to have won the battle.

“I can’t find any wounds,” said the man who’d pulled me out of the sea, callused hands resting on my side for a moment. “You just drowned, didn’t you?”

I took a deep, rasping breath, hazarding a reply. “Sounds about right.”

Lifting a shaking hand, I scraped my wet hair away from my face and neck until I felt marginally less like a drowned rat. My eyes stung of salt water, my heartbeat thumping in my sinuses. 

"Can you not swim?" someone else asked. I gathered my wits about me, then shrugged. I hadn’t really had the chance to try.

"Actually, she sank way too fast for that. She didn't even thrash about or anything." Ace frowned down at me from atop a fallen spar, fingers tapping absently against the wood. "Loki, did you feel strange in any way when you were in the water? Like... I dunno, like you'd had all your energy drained?"

The shaking eased a little. I pushed myself to my hands and knees, wheezing gently, then sat up. "Felt like I was dead. Couldn’t move, too tired.” I found my rescuer, a lanky bronze-skinned man with brilliant bottle-green eyes. Lacking the energy to bully my face into making normal expressions, I settled for a quick nod. “Thank you.”

"No problem," he said, returning my nod with a lopsided grin. His green eyes cut away toward Ace, sparkling. "I'm used to fishing people out of the water." 

Ace caught the look, and scowled. "What's that supposed to mean, you bastard? I haven't fallen overboard for at least two months!"

"Which is something of a record, really. What's the betting he goes overboard tomorrow?" Thatch arrived, the gathered pirates parting to let him through. His white jacket and pants were spotless, a naked saber in his right hand. "No fatalities—no serious injuries, even, which is something of a miracle after that stunt you pulled with the gunpowder, Ace. Job's done here, guys. Let’s head home."

He prodded a groaning pirate with his elegantly slippered foot. "You gave a good fight, kiddos, but not good enough. Like I always say, better luck next time."

* * *

Returning to the Bluefin, we licked our minor wounds, speculating as we did on how long it would take before the sheep crew returned. First Marco and then Grim (the latter with a much greater effect) gave Ace an earful for his stunt with the forecastle. He bore it stoically, offering no excuse, and did not so much as look for an escape. Shortly after the shouting subsided, he came creeping out onto the deck, uncharacteristically quiet, and sat cross-legged on the timbers a few feet away from where I lay trying to dry myself out in the sun.

As the seawater evaporated, it left behind a thin coating of salt on my skin. I brushed it off as it appeared, waiting for Ace to break the silence on his own terms. 

Aside from those few up in the rigging, we were the only ones out on-deck. The sun blazed like a furnace, the wind weak and lazy. Anyone with half a brain was staying inside, in the shade. 

My adventure in the ocean had killed more than half my brain, apparently. Ace being made of fire, he never had any to begin with.

He gazed studiously down at the decking, his hands gathered in his lap and shoulders hunched in a perfect picture of repentance."I must be the luckiest bastard in the world. That's not the first explosion I've caused by accident, and I still haven't killed anybody I didn't want to."

"Oh. It was an accident?" I asked, without thinking. Ace looked up at me, his black eyes intense and serious.

"Of course it was an accident, Loki. I'm not stupid enough to set off an explosion where my friends are likely to be hurt by it. The gunpowder stores in the hold could have gone up too, and that probably would've killed all of you. If I'd had anything of a choice about it, I'd have made damn sure I didn't touch that cask." His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. "Fire is incredibly dangerous. No-one knows that better than me."

I bit my lip, wishing I'd held my tongue. "Then why did Marco and Grim yell at you so much?"

He leaned back, bracing his hands against the deck. “I was careless. If anything, they should have been harder on me.”

That didn't seem quite fair. "How were you careless?" I asked, brushing a patch of salt from my forearm.

Ace shrugged, grinning, but the expression fell flat. "I just wasn't looking where I was throwing my flames, I guess. There was a little cask in the corner of the room. Wooden, and so old it practically vaporized when I started throwing my flames around. There was gunpowder in it, and it did what gunpowder does best.”

“You couldn't have known what was in it," I said mulishly. Speaking as the person who’d come closest to death today, I couldn't see what Marco and Grim had gotten so up in arms about.

Ace shrugged, grinning a self-effacing grin. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, I think.” He slumped backward, laying spread-eagled across the deck and basking in the sunlight. “By the way, I think you're a Devil Fruit user."

I inspected the deck, weighing his words against the weight of the sea that still loomed heavy in the back of my mind. The one constant thing I'd ever heard about Devil Fruits was their weakness to the sea. Put that together with the instant exhaustion that had come over me as I hit the water, and it seemed likely that my problem with swimming wasn't just not knowing how.

Knowledge was what I really needed. Knowledge of everything I was, what I could and couldn't do.

"So do I." I took a deep breath, and let it all out in a gusty sigh. "Be nice to know for sure."

Ace grinned—and now the wicked glint returned to his eyes. "Well, there's an easy way to find out."

"There is?"

I should have been more suspicious, in hindsight. Ace recruited a couple of the watchmen, one of them my rescuer from the sheep guys’ ship, to help. Then he commandeered a length of rope from somewhere hopefully non-vital, tied it around my waist and chucked me overboard again. Before I had the chance to sink and drown, he and the watchmen hauled the rope back in. I bobbed precariously in the water, submerged to my neck but no further.

My rescuer, whose name I now learned was Reed, leaned precariously over the side, calling down to me. "How do you feel, Loki?”

The answer bubbled up unprompted in me. "Like I'm being sat on by an elephant." 

The hull of the Bluefin was close enough that I could have reached out and pressed my palm against it, but I went to raise my hand from my sides and my fingers barely twitched. I tried to kick my feet, and my thighs sort of spasmed, no control to the movement. My skin crawled. I felt utterly helpless, hopeless, like a cork bobbing along in the Bluefin’s wake. 

Ace chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds familiar. Bring her up, boys.”

They hauled on the rope, lifting me back out of my watery prison. The heavy ache faded as my torso left the water, gone entirely by the time my feet lifted clear, but the eerie exhaustion lingered.

“ Positive?” asked Reed as I neared the railings.

Ace nodded, reaching down to grab my wrists. “Sure looks like it.”

A final haul, and I slithered bonelessly over the railing, dripping seawater everywhere for the second time that day. My jacket clung uncomfortably to my skin, bunching up in places and stretching flat in others. I picked at the knot holding it closed and pulled it wide open in the front, collapsing back onto the sunny deck. I felt like I could have slept for days.

“So that question’s down,” said the other watchman, the one I didn't know. “How do we find out what power she’s got?”

Ace gathered the rope into a neat loop and hung it from his forearm. "I dunno. Got any ideas we could start with, Loki?"

"Nope." I tried to shake my head, then decided I couldn't be bothered. My eyes followed a pair of seagulls wheeling in the sky until they passed in front of the sun and I looked away, squinting. 

"How’d you find out what yours was, Ace?" Reed suggested, settling cross-legged at my side. "Maybe we can start from there."

"I caught fire pretty much as soon as I ate the damn fruit.” Ace smirked. “Logias like to be flashy.”

"Please don't set me on fire," I said, staring up at him. "Or do anything else that might cause me physical harm."

"I don't think you have to worry about that," the third man said. He had piercing yellow eyes, deep-set beneath eyebrows like black caterpillars, and was probably older than Ace and Reed combined, by the thin lines that crisscrossed his face and hands like spiderwebs."You planning to sit up anytime soon?" 

I shook my head. "S'nice and warm here in the sun. I don't feel like moving."

Ace grinned contentedly, sitting down on the deck beside Reed. "You're definitely an anchor. The sea takes all your strength, doesn't it?"

"And motivation," I added. "I feel like I'm going to sleep for days.”

“Don't fall asleep in the sun, you'll get horribly burned,” said the mystery man. “Don't be like Ace.” 

I glanced up at him, standing just within my field of vision. “What does that mean?”

“Ace falls asleep every fucking time he goes in the water,” the older watchman said. “On the one hand, I’d rather that than a thrashing idiot, but on the other hand, you pull him out and he looks dead. Gave us all a fright the first few times he did it.”

I frowned. “Does that happen to a lot of Devil Fruit users?”

"Just Ace, we think," Reed said helpfully. "He falls asleep all the time. In his food, in the showers, in the middle of the hallway, everywhere but his bed."

“Narco-whatsit.” Ace shrugged. “I don't sleep well at night, so my body tries to sleep when it's not supposed to. On the bright side, I don't have to stand night watches!”

“Narco… praxy?” Reed raised his eyebrows at Ace. “Narcolexy? Something with an X.”

Ace scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t think so. Harkaitz, help us out, I can’t remember.”

The elderly watchman got to his feet. “Do I look like a doctor to you kids? Get up, Reed, we’ve still got work to do.”

He prodded Reed with his toes until the younger man rolled away across the deck in an effort to escape. Ace watched them go, the frown between his eyes deepening. Silence fell.

Suddenly Ace snapped his fingers. “Narcolepsy. That’s the one.”

* * *

Another night, another dawn. I’d slept like a rock after the excitement of the previous day, waking amid creaking timbers and the sails snapping in a gale some time before dawn.

It had been an effort to pry myself out of bed. The aches of the previous day magnified tenfold; lead filled my bones. I shuffled to the edge of the narrow bunk and let gravity and the waves toss me out.

The time now was about half an hour past dawn. I had come down into the galley to find something to alleviate my fatigue. The cook on duty had taken one look at me and served up a cup of the boiling hot, strange-smelling, thick black tea the Whitebeard Pirates used as a hangover cure. Then he'd pressed a fresh bread roll into my other hand, and sent me back into the galley to wake up properly.

The tea was even stronger than the Carolingen brew Lorna had served back in Tusanto. Even so, I was beginning to get used to it after three days. The trick was to get as much down in one gulp as was humanly possible. I drank deeply, swaying with the hard roll of the ship beneath me, and took a bite of my roll to wash away the bitter aftertaste.

Despite the wind, it was sunny outside, and threatened to turn just as hot as yesterday. The Bluefin lurched and crashed through towering waves, sea spray blowing hard across the decks. The sky was brilliant blue, flecked with tiny freckles of white cloud, but the sea had turned a stormy slate grey.

A fork left over from someone's breakfast went skittering across the table; I grabbed it before it could go over the side.

Today, I gathered, was going to be a day off for me. Neroli had cornered me as the sun rose to tell me she’d been rostered for the morning, and to take my sweet time with breakfast. She hadn’t had to tell me twice. I found a comfy seat in the galley and parked my ass there, nursing my bread roll and foul-smelling tea.

The rest of the crew gradually filtered in, covered in sea spray and somewhat subdued. Some unlucky sod retched in a dark corner. Damini arrived, skipping breakfast and heading straight for my table at the back of the hall.

Close up, she looked worse than I did. We’d ended up in different cabins in the move to the Bluefin, and I wondered if hers was serving her as well as it ought. Her lower eyelids, always somewhat darker than the upper, looked like sunken pits. Her lips had cracked, and her eyes lacked their usual glimmer.

“Are you sick?” I asked, frowning heavily. "How long have you been up?"

She glanced at me, her eyes bloodshot and fatigued. "Since three-thirty. I had about three hours' sleep in Grim's bunk. As far as I know, she herself hasn't slept at all since yesterday morning."

"No wonder you look so…" I trailed off, unsure of what adjective to use. 'Tired' simply wasn't strong enough.

"Smashed? Shattered, strung-out, dead on my feet?" Damini suggested, chuckling blackly. "I'd kill for a coffee right now. Only it'd likely all slop out and burn my fingers before I could drink it."

I shared her humourless laugh. "How long do you have to do this for?"

“A couple of days or so.” She grabbed my half drunk tea, raised it to her nose and breathed deeply. “Gods, that stinks.” 

“You can have it if you want,” I offered. She snorted softly, shook her head.

“No thanks. My stomach is looking for an excuse to rebel as it is; I’d hate to give it satisfaction.”

Across the galley, I spotted a familiar blonde head weaving through the crowd. Marco turned as if he sensed my attention, gazing unerringly back at me.

“That man has eyes in the back of his head,” I murmured, not taking my eyes off him. Damini followed my line of sight, and laughed. 

After a moment of eye contact, Marco turned back to the kitchen, vanishing behind a group of taller men. It was hard to tell from this distance, but I thought he might have smiled.

I took my tea back from Damini and gulped down the last of it, then shoved my bread roll into my mouth. She gave me an awkward look, halfway between a smile and a grimace. I returned it, covering my mouth with a hand and raising my eyebrows. Again, she gave a short laugh.

The fourth division’s two top dogs, Thatch and Kestrel, appeared at the galley door. I kept an eye on them, waiting for Marco to appear, and sure enough he did, materialising out of nowhere and snagging Thatch by the sleeve of his neat white jacket. They spoke among themselves for a few moments before Kestrel broke off, heading for the kitchen. Marco slowly made his way across the galley. Thatch followed him, more or less, drifting from table to table and slipping skilfully in and out of conversations.

Marco reached our table, and I realised we’d been his targets all along just before he grabbed a chair and sat down. “Good morning, rookies. You know what today is?”

Damini nodded, her expression fierce and determined. I looked from her to Marco and back again, wondering where I’d dropped the ball.

Marco raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t share the news, Damini?”

She purses her lips, looking suitably contrite. “I forgot.”

He gave her an assessing look. “Grim kept you up all night, did she?” Damini nodded, and he chuckled, leaning his elbow against the table and his chin on the heel of his palm. “That is a good excuse, I’ll grant you that.”

Big hands came down on the tabletop, scarred and callused. Thatch loomed, grinning. “We’re in Jason’s Knot, kiddoes. Last call for the brown pants!”

I blinked. "Who or what is Jason's Knot?"

Marco chuckled gently. "It’s a damn mess, is what it is. Three surface currents converge near the edge of the Calm Belt, turning the sea into a raging maelstrom nearly a hundred nautical miles across. What makes it worse is that it’s quite close to where the equatorial trade winds converge—it can be like sailing through a hurricane. So the whole Knot is virtually impassable—except for a three-mile wide passage through the middle.” He glanced at Damini, adding with a tiny smirk, “It takes all of a navigator's skill and luck to keep a ship on course through the Knot."

"Grim's one of a handful of navigators who could do it," a guy from one of the nearer tables put in, grinning with the peculiar sort of pride most of Whitebeard's Pirates exhibited when they were talking about the commanders and senior crewmembers. "I hear she was apprenticed on the ship that found the passage first, even."

"That true?" said someone else, through a mouth full of noodles. “Good to know we’ve got some experience. I’ve heard a lot about the Knot, none of it good.”

Marco fixed the man with an amused look. "Surely you don't think this is the first time we've done it, either?”

"The tenth time, even," Thatch sniggered. "Jason's Knot is old news to most of us."

I folded my arms against the edge of the table, glancing at Marco. “It sounds dangerous."

"It depends on the quality of ship, crew and navigator." He stared pensively at me for a moment, his blue eyes mild. "Are you worried?"

It wasn't an unexpected question. "Not really," I said. "It's not in my nature to be scared until whatever it is that I'm supposed to be scared of is actually happening.” I blinked, and a memory of today’s first dip in the ocean flashed before my eyes. “Or has happened already. I'm just wondering why we don't go around it instead of through if the consequences of getting it wrong are so high."

He nodded, lips twitching into a faint smile. "Mainly because it's so much faster—two days as opposed to two weeks if we go the long way. This way, we’ll swoop down on Kiiroen long before we’re expected, even supposing the Lightyears know we’re on the way."

"So it's convenience and danger versus safety and tedium."

I mustn't have looked very impressed, because Marco laughed again, giving an expansive shrug. "Who wants safety? Danger is so much more interesting. Why else would you become a pirate?"

Unfortunately for him, Thatch heard that last part. He looped an arm around Marco’s shoulder and leaned down on him, stroking his goatee with his free hand.

"Well, Marco, there's the food and booze, the spoils of war, the ocean under your hull, the pretty girls— _ hurk… _ " Kestrel loomed out of the breakfast crowd, a fist raised. She’d sucker-punched him in the kidneys.

"Perhaps you'd better stick to town girls," Marco observed. "The pirate girls seem to know you too well."

Stifling laughter, Damini tapped my elbow with an ink-stained finger. “Loki, would you help me take some things out to Grim? I need to grab her some breakfast, and I don’t have enough hands.”

Glancing out the portholes into the maelstrom, I carefully nodded. The waves might tower and crash, but the Bluefin was large and we hadn’t been swamped yet.

Marco dug a scrap of paper from his pocket and passed it to Damini. “Give her this while you’re at it, eh.”

She nodded, stood. I followed suit.

Outside the wind howled, battering us onward with the force of a typhoon. Hands full of navigational equipment, I staggered dangerously, slipping on the froth that covered the deck. The sails were all but furled, only two of the lowest set on the fore and main masts. I spared a moment to feel sorry for whichever poor sailors got to climb up there in this weather, then followed Damini up onto the poop deck.

Grim stood just in front of the mizzenmast, a tiny old woman shouting into something in her hand that amplified her voice loud enough to be heard above the storm. She turned as we approached, stern-faced, and lowered her hand. Her brightly-patterned coat snapped in the wind.

Damini handed Grim the box containing her lunch. Grim motioned over another sailor, who took the tools in my hands with careful precision.

“Thank you,” the old navigator said, giving Damini a curt nod. “Watch and listen carefully, my girl. This is the narrowest part of the channel; any mistake we make could be catastrophic.”

Damini nodded fiercely. “I understand.”

“Good.” Grim smiled, the first I’d ever seen from her. She gestured to the deck behind her, and Damini went, spreading her feet apart for balance and wrapping the free end of her scarf around her head.

I stayed quiet for a few minutes, enduring the screaming wind and the lashing spray, then ventured an observation. "At least it's not raining,"

Damini shuddered hugely. "Don't tempt fate. I'm Carolingen; we tend to melt and run through the cracks in the floorboards when it rains."

The sails snapped and creaked in a particularly vicious gust of wind. Salt water dripped into the corner of my eye. I squinted hard, resisting the urge to rub it away—my hands were covered in seaspray; I’d have only made the burn worse.

"Even so," Damini said after a while, "I kind of like this. It's a whole new experience. I knew that being a sailor, let alone a pirate, was a whole lot tougher than being a philosopher, but I had no idea how tough. But I'm going to beat the hardship, Loki. I'm going to win."

She smiled a feral grin, her teeth bright white in her dark face. "This is what all Grim's teaching is going to culminate in, anyway. It's just come sooner than either of us expected."

I thought back to the determination she’d shown in accompanying me, first to Lokashiri and then onward. Where did it come from? If Carolinge was so safe, why had she felt she needed to leave it?

The sea glinted in my peripheral vision, waves lifting and slamming into the hull. I swayed with the movement, keeping afoot; Damini grabbed my wrist for balance.  

I realised I had my answer already. 

She found her footing again, releasing me and gazing forward into the wind. I watched her for a moment, something warm settling in my chest, then turned to leave. “I’m going back to the galley. Do you need anything else?”

Damini waved me off, grinning. "Get me a dry sandwich or something? I'm  _ starving _ ."

* * *

 

We made it through Jason’s Knot without drama, emerging the following evening into a quiet, silvery evening. The lack of wind and waves felt like a dream after the fury of the previous days. I took my notebook up onto the whalehead at the bow of the ship and sketched the scene until the light faded entirely and I could no longer see where to put my pencil. 

Kiiroen Island, and its twin, Akaen, rose out of the haze on the third day after Jason's Knot. The watchmen played two blasts of a horn, one for each peak. I watched them draw closer throughout my shift in the rigging, coming down that afternoon as the divisions prepared for landing.

Akaen, the larger of the two, was blanketed with red beech trees from the shoreline right up to the steepest ridges. Smaller, flatter Kiiroen glowed golden under the sunlight, covered in huge fields of wheat and other grasses separated from each other by belts of ancient evergreen trees. One ridge followed the course of the island from north to south, cut through by deep ravines, at the bottoms of which flourished thick green scrub.

"Akaen: soil too poor for agricultural use, unpopulated. Kiiroen: minor producer of wheat, barley, and nothing much else, home to maybe two hundred people in one trading port," Marco muttered to me, pausing as he passed my perch on the railing. “Not worth much to a pirate, except maybe as a hideout.”

We passed the port, little more than a dip in the coastline behind a rocky headland. There were already two ships docked in the harbour; one a fat little merchant vessel sitting low in the water, and the other a sleek brigantine, rigged with crimson sails and a flag of the same colour flying proudly from the top of the mainmast.

Red—flat red, with no device or design, red the colour of blood. It meant no mercy would be shown.

Well, we'd expected as much.

We sailed onward, around the headland to a wide bay that arced out to a distant sandspit. Akaen loomed to the south, turning black as the sun sank below the horizon. We laid anchor in the channel between the two islands, half a mile of so down from the headland. Landing boats ferried us ashore as the dusk fell. 

I found myself room on one of the later boats, accompanied by Tad Russ. Someone passed me an oar; Tad spent the journey in teaching me how to use it. By the time our little boat juddered on the sandy bottom, the earlier landers had dragged a massive pile of driftwood up to the back of the beach, beyond the tide line.

Ace waved his arms, summoning his flames, and set the pile alight. Thatch and a couple of the fourth division poked at the burning logs, keeping the bonfire supplied. The division cooks arrived with meat from the ship. Booze followed food, and from thereon, the rest of the night degenerated into a wild party.


	9. gunpowder in my pulse

 

**THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER**

-  _gunpowder in my pulse_ -

 

I woke with the dawn the next morning, clear-headed, if a little tired.

Yawning, I took stock of my state. I lay sprawled flat on my back in the sand, my feet pressing up against someone's back, with someone else's feet in turn tangled in my outstretched arm. Something in the sand beneath me dug uncomfortably into my hip. Close by, someone snored thunderously.

I turned my head and caught a blurry close-up of Ace's Whitebeard tattoo. Looking the other way, I nearly mashed my nose against Thatch's knee.

There was nowhere to go but up. I levered myself to my feet, wearily brushing sand from my skin. At least I was still fully-clothed—both Ace and Thatch were shirtless (unusual in Thatch's case, not so much in Ace's), and the man sprawled at my feet was naked as the day he was born.

I caught a glimpse of bright red cloth tucked away on Ace's other side. He lay on his side facing away from me, one arm tucked beneath his head as a pillow, the other curved protectively around Damini, who was cuddled in close against his chest like some sort of overgrown teddy bear. Her robes spread out across the sand, her long black braid tangled around one arm.

"Cute, aren't they?"

"You have a habit of sneaking up on people," I told Marco, glancing over my shoulder at the First-Division commander. He stood right in my blind spot, a couple of metres away, a face on him like he was already planning how best to go about teasing the sleeping cuddlers when they woke.

"I do," he agreed, nodding amiably. "I find it's one use of an imperceptible presence that never gets old."

"With a smile like that on your face, it's easy to imagine why." I kept my voice low, so I wouldn't wake any of the slumbering pirates around me. I probably needn't have worried—with the amount of alcohol that had been consumed last night, I imagined most of them would be out a few hours yet.

Marco laughed, his grin widening. “So it would be. Since you're awake, you may as well come help me see what’s for breakfast." He motioned toward the bonfire, where a couple of other early risers were coaxing the embers back into life. "If you've got a hangover, a bite to eat might help."

I shook my head. "I feel fine, actually. I'm just hungry."

Blinking, I rubbed the sleep from the corners of my eyes and rose to my feet. One last look at Ace and Damini brought a smile to my lips; then I followed Marco through the tangle of our crewmates, to the open space that had been left around the bonfire.

It was going to be a dull day, or morning at least—aside from a faint yellow glow near the horizon, the sky was covered in flat grey clouds. If the wind shifted later on in the afternoon, they might break apart enough to let the sun through. For now, there was no promise of improvement.

Marco put me to work alongside the other early risers, prodding the bonfire back to life and cooking a fresh load of sausages. These were a quintessential pirate food, I was told, easily preserved, quick to heat, and handy to eat on the go.

Time passed, and the quality of the daylight passed from yellow new-dawn to dull cloudy-day silver. The cook in charge released me from my bonfire duties after an hour or so. I wandered aimlessly through the camp until quite by accident, I came across Marco again.

He was sitting cross-legged in the lee of a massive trunk of driftwood, staring down at an old, crumpled map. The sea breeze came swirling over the top of the log, tousling his tuft of blonde hair on the way past. The urge to reach out and touch it surged through me—my hands twitched, and I ruthlessly tamped down on the impulse.

He looked up as I approached. “The breakfast rush died down, has it?”

I nodded. “Cooks just freed me. I don’t know what to do with myself yet.”

His lips curled into a gentle smile. “That’s fair. Find some friends and go poke around the beach if you like; we could always do with more firewood.”

I swung myself up onto the log. “All my friends are still asleep.”

Marco exhaled, half laughter, half sigh. “In that case, I suppose the merciful thing is to let them wake on their own terms. No one wants to go to war with a hangover.”

“That sounds a little risky,” I observed. “What if—who are they, the Lightyear Pirates?—what if they came after us?”

Marco’s eyes glittered. “It is a risk, isn’t it.” He rolled the map, and passed it up to me, his expression perfectly bland. “I had wondered if the noise last night might draw them out, but it seems they’re being cautious. I’m going to have to do some scouting.”

I stared down at the map in my hands. “Do you think they’re hiding?”

“I think they’re waiting for an opportune moment,” he said, climbing to his feet. He bent, brushing the sand from his pants, and added, “I’m going to make sure they don’t get it.”

I cocked my head, thoughts racing each other through my mind, and let him go without a reply. It sounded like he’d deliberately let us put ourselves at risk. I wondered if that was a reflection of confidence, pirate strategy, or just the way Marco did things. No doubt the crew had experience with situations like this. Perhaps there was context I was missing.

A yawn squeezed out of my lungs. I shook my head, opened Marco’s map across my lap and spent the next hour familiarizing myself with Kiiroen’s topography.

The island was almost crescent-shaped, composed of a ridge of hills that circled shallowly around the wide bay in which the Bluefin rode at anchor. The headland between us and the town of Forsetti formed the northern end of this ridge, while a flat, marshy sandspit at the far end of the bay sprang from the southern end, reaching out as if it wanted to cross the channel and touch Akaen's shores. There were two homesteads marked on the map, both perched on the ridge overlooking Forsetti's harbour. A rough track ran between them and the outskirts of the town.

My slumbering crewmates began to rejoin the living around midday, silently enduring hangovers of varying severity. No-one wanted to make too much noise—not even Thatch, today a ghost of his usual rambunctious self.

Despite this, the prevailing attitude was all business. Swordsmen sat down to polish their blades and check hilts for loose fixings. Gunners cleaned their pistols, ensuring firing mechanisms were working in top order. Hidden knives emerged, and less common weapons as well. Conscious of my own lack of firepower, I found someone who looked like they were doing, and asked if anyone had any spares. Eight separate pirates volunteered.

Marco disappeared for a few hours after midday, then reappeared as suddenly as he'd gone. When I asked where he'd been, he made a vague gesture and smiled. "Around."

"Tell me next time," I grumbled, then remembered I was talking to a senior pirate. "Please?"

He grinned, then reached out and ruffled my hair. I'd pulled it free of its usual ponytail today, meaning to wash it if I got the chance. Blonde strands went everywhere.

"All right then," he said.

Blinking furiously, I dragged my fingers through my hair in an effort to restore some sort of order to it. He strolled away, still smiling. I watched him until he vanished into the camp, eyes wide and bewildered.

Later that afternoon, investigating the hills at the back of the beach, Damini discovered a stream that flowed down out of a valley and across the beach about two hundred yards west of our camp. We purloined a bar of soap and explored a way up the streambed, looking for a decent place to wash. About sixty yards up, we came across a shallow pool beneath a waterfall that tumbled over an exposed rock face. It would make do.

We stripped off our clothes and waded in, hissing and shuddering at the chill in the water. Damini released her hair from its braid, and it fanned out into an inky black cloud in the water.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep with Ace,” she said quietly, kneeling in the water and lathering the soap up her arms. “It’s just… he’s _warm._ I’m kind of cold in this weather, you know.”

I shrugged. “I’m not gonna judge.”

She glanced up at me, a lopsided smile tugging at her lips. “I know. I appreciate that, believe me. A part of me still wants to justify it, but to who?” Ducking her head, she worked the soap through her masses of hair. “To _me_ , I think. Which tells me more than I am sure I like.”

I waded into the center of the pool, standing waist-deep. The water wasn’t so bad now that I’d gotten used to the temperature. The iron numbness of the sea hovered just out of reach, threatening but not yet disabling. “I have no idea what you mean by that.”

Damini shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

It didn’t sound like nothing, but I doubted pushing her would help. I returned to the side of the pool, giving her a measuring look. She wordlessly offered the soap.

* * *

 We got back to the camp around four o'clock. The day's clouds were beginning to dissipate, too late to enjoy the sun. A pair of fourth-divisioners cornered us, demanding to know where we'd washed; we pointed them toward the stream and passed on the soap we’d borrowed earlier.

Damini made some muttered excuses and went to find Ace. I snagged another sausage from the bonfire-cooks, turned back to Kiiroen’s glowing hills, and decided I was going to go for a walk.

It was surprising how quickly the noise of the camp dropped away as I climbed into the hills. I followed an old sheep trail up onto a ridge between stream-cut valleys, emerging from mossy rock walls and green leafy scrub to tussocks and wheat fields. The trail led between two fields, following a route marked in pampas and wild clover and populated by huge yellow bumblebees.  There was no flat ground on which to rest, and my legs quickly began to ache with the climb.

The track flattened out somewhat as it emerged onto the hilltops. I followed it right up to the rounded peak at the center of the island, and looked out over the ocean. Clouds on the western horizon cast titanic shadows across the world. Gilded yellow by the emerging sunlight, Kiiroen's wheatfields glowed. Akaen was a gloomy sentinel of red standing tall and jagged in the south. Direct sunlight wasn't going to last much longer, I realised. Was it summer or winter? Winter, I hoped. If it was this gloomy in summer I really didn't envy Kiiroen's residents.

Looking down the way I had come, I spotted the Bluefin, floating at anchor out in the bay, and little dark specks that were my crew mates moving about the beach. Turning the other way, the island ended in enormous sea cliffs. The breeze carried booming surf up to my lofty vantage point, and the smell of kelp and brine.

I wandered on down to the cliff’s edge, looking out over the ocean. The edge gave me the shivers, so I stayed well away, wary of unstable ground. The slope was shallower here, the ground covered with short grass and jagged black rocks that ranged from pebble-sized to boulders as tall as I was. I bent, picking up a couple of the smaller ones. They were rough and semi-eroded, painful to step on. Not for the first time, I wished I’d bought some shoes when I had the chance.

Then there was a new noise. Something crackled faintly, like grass underfoot.

I stilled, then turned and looked back over my shoulder.

Two people ambled through the field above—people I didn't know. One was a tall, lanky man; probably a couple of inches taller than me, but thinner as well. A girl trotted along behind him, long, loose dark hair streaming out behind her in the wind. They wore bright clothes, and each had a knife tucked into their belts. Their manners were confident, maybe even bordering on arrogant.

The man grinned down at me. "Well hello there! We've been watching you guys down on the beach for a while now. How're you enjoying your stay on our island?"

Their island? My eyes narrowed.

The man was a handsome fellow, with flyaway chestnut hair and eyes of the same colour, but the girl was better-looking from a distance, before the sunken, skeletal look of her face became apparent. A skull-and-crossbones tattoo spread across her forehead, a skull split in half vertically with a pair of swords set at angles on either side. Unlike her companion, her smile had no pretense of welcome to it.

There was a pause. After a moment of awkward silence, I realised they were probably waiting for an answer. I held the man’s gaze, wondering if I could turn the missed social cue into an advantage. His smile slipped fractionally.

"Well, anyway." He advanced on me, his hand drifting to the hilt of a knife tucked into his belt. "We've been waiting for one of you to come out alone. Wasn't very wise of you, was it, Whitebeard's dog?"

I let the silence go again, turning over a plan of attack in my head. The man stepped closer, drawing his knife and tapping the rusted blade against the base of his thumb. “Say something, you bitch!”

Not that it would have mattered to him, but I couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to. Something inside me had stuck; my tongue felt heavy inside my mouth and my thoughts had turned to wordless impulses and mental images. I watched them approach, blinking freely. Neither seemed to have guns. This was a relief, because I now realised I'd left the one I'd acquired that afternoon back at camp.

Movement from the girl, a flick of her jacket in the wind. Movement from the man, the glint of his knife in the sunset.

I made a split second decision and ran.

Back down the hill toward the eroded edge of the cliff, bare feet pounding across the rocky ground. I jinked around a massive boulder and took a hard left, skidding across loose gravel. Pain ripped through my feet; I made a resolution to get me some damn shoes the first chance I got.

A hurried glance over my shoulder revealed the man more or less keeping pace with me. The girl had dropped behind, short legs unable to keep up.

There was my chance. I pivoted around a boulder, swinging into my pursuer’s path and facing him head on. He struck out with the knife, shouting something that I missed beneath the roaring heartbeat in my ears. I followed the path of the knife and caught his wrist with my opposite hand, using his own momentum to yank him sideways. He stumbled. I stepped in close to his side and kneed him. Ribs gave way under the impact.

By then the girl had caught up. She came at me with a long skinning knife, eerily silent. I skipped backward, ducked low and snatched a fist-sized rock from the ground. Any weapon was better than none. She struck like a viper; I leapt backward, balanced on my heel and chucked the rock hard at her.

It missed, but she instinctively raised her hands to protect her face, and that was opening enough. I caught her knife hand by the draping sleeve of her jacket and hauled on it, dragging her off her feet. She was terrifyingly light. I balled my fingers into a fist and punched her, hard. She dropped like a rock.

I turned back to the other man the moment she fell. He’d managed to get to his feet, but his hands shook and his breathing was rough and uneven. I took a step toward him; he wheezed and raised the knife again. I stopped.

Did I want to kill him? No, not particularly. Was I prepared to kill him if I had to? Hell, yes.

I picked another rock up off the ground and held it toward him, palms up. He frowned. I mimed throwing it. He flinched backward, and groaned. I seemed to have broken some of his ribs.

I gestured toward his unconscious companion, then pointed along the coast, toward the town.

The man glared at me. “The fuck are you saying?”

I shrugged, started up the hill. My voice still wasn’t cooperating.

“Hey!” he shouted after me. “You just gonna walk away like that?”

I drew in a breath, and the air shivered around us. Something dropped out of the fading sunset.

Marco stepped out in front of me—blue light danced around his shoulders and vanished. “You’ve been given a gift,” he told the man, his voice projecting clearly through the evening air. “Make good use of it.”

The Lightyear pirate’s eyes went wide. He closed his mouth and grimaced, sheathing the knife, then lurched toward his fallen comrade.

Marco turned back to me, and the shiver in the air faded. He tucked his thumbs into his sash. “That was nicely done.”

I blinked. He looked into my eyes, and whatever he saw there seemed to satisfy him. He joined me among the tussocks, making slowly for the hilltop. “Are you all right?”

I breathed deep, coughed a little, and suddenly I could talk again. “Yeah, I think.”

This was only an approximate judgement. My legs felt like overcooked noodles, my feet like tenderised steak. My hands shook like jellies as I raised them to my face, tucking stray strands of hair behind my ears. I wasn’t _hurt,_ but I didn’t feel particularly comfortable either.

“Good.” He looked down at the ground, nudging a head of tussock out of the way with a sandaled toe. “I saw most of that. Someone’s taught you to fight, and taught you _well_.”

"I don’t get it.” The words slipped out before I’d fully formed the sentence. I shook my head, rallying myself, and continued. "I don’t remember ever learning how to do these things, but I can do them anyway. I see things happen and I just know how to react without thinking about it.”

Marco glanced over at me. “It’s called procedural memory. You remember it for the same reason that you remember how to write and speak—because you’ve spent so long doing it that the process is part of your brain now.”

“Oh,” I said. “That… makes sense.”

“Does it, or are you just saying that?”

I gave him a look. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

He grinned. The sun was right behind him now, shining like a halo through his blonde hair and throwing his face into shadow. “Tell me your name is Marco.”

I frowned, mystified. “Why?”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Humor me.”

“I don’t want to.” I squinted at him out of the corner of my eye. What the heck was he playing at?

“Why not?”

Again, I blurted out the answer without thinking. “It feels wrong.”

“Ah,” he said, like that meant something. “Tell me what your name is.”

I went to answer and the words stuck in my throat.

Marco waited patiently. I swallowed, coughed again, and managed a quiet response: “My name is Loki.”

“You’re not sure about that, are you.”

It wasn’t a question. He’d read me like an open book. I doubted it had been all that hard.

The sun sank beneath the horizon, and with it went the day's heat. A cool zephyr rustled through the wheat.

“It’s the best I’ve got,” I said, looking down. My feet came in and out of view as we made our ascent, old grass and tussocks crunching underfoot. Dust worked between my toes, a sensory experience that made my skin crawl. Marco’s sandalled feet climbed the track beside me, his presence somehow comforting.

Exhaling in a rush, I took a deep breath, and continued. “Give me time. I think it’ll help. In the meantime I’m just here waiting to lose everything I think I know all over again.”

He made a quiet noise, a sympathetic hum. “You’ve not lost your memory, you’ve lost your whole identity. Time is the least we can give you.”

“You’ve helped,” I said, reaching down to steady myself against a rock as the trail zigzagged up a steep stretch of hillside. “Pops gave me a place to stay and you all have given me a chance to find myself. I’m happy with you. I still feel like I’m standing on thin ice, but there’s stable ground within reach.”

“That’s good, eh.” There was an audible smile in his voice. “You called him Pops. I don’t think I’ve heard that from you before.”

I gave him a sidelong look. “Everyone does.”

He caught me looking, gave my shoulder a sturdy pat. “I mean that as a good thing. We call him Pops because he calls us his children. A lot of us have no blood family, or our families abused and ostracised us. It’s about taking control of our own lives, making choices where others would like us to believe we have none.”

We reached the summit, and Marco turned left along the ridge, toward the little town. I followed.

"Can I ask you a question?"

His eyes flicked my way, then back to the wheat fields ahead. "Fire away."

"Where are you going?” Doubts loomed behind my thoughts, but I pressed on. “Shouldn't you be down with the guys, preparing for... whatever's gonna happen?"

Marco grinned, his eyes glinting in the dusk. "As it happens, I'm on an errand."

A second question slipped out of me. "What sort of an errand?"

"Well, if you keep on following me you'll see soon enough. Watch your step—the path here is tricky."

He clambered down over a face of black rock that jutted steeply out of the hillside, picking a nimble path around the bluff. I edged after him with considerably less agility.

Ahead of us was a hollow in the hillside, the head of one of the deep ravines that cut through Kiiroen’s sheltered inland flank. Two ancient pine trees grew above the hollow, their spreading branches shielding it from the air, and below it the approach was blocked by a thicket of gorse that reached right up into the pines. I squinted, peering into the darkness beneath the spreading branches, but night was coming on and I saw nothing.

"You’re going to see the pirates." I guessed.

Marco’s grin turned satisfied. “Let’s be uninvited guests.”

We left the ridge, heading down into the hollow. The path was tricky, covered with smooth, rounded stones that rolled underneath our feet at the slightest prompting. I stumbled more than once, slipping and sliding down after Marco.

The hollow provided a shelter I wouldn't have guessed to look in, hidden from the foot of the hills by the hills themselves, and from the ridge by the trees. The grove looked impassable until you approached it from the side and slightly above, at which point a narrow corridor through the gorse became apparent. The thick gorse muffled all but the loudest voices.

The shadow beneath the pines was not as deep from up close. Two pirates sat on the lower branches, looking for all the world like bored watchmen. They probably had been, before we arrived.

Marco shifted his hands to his hips, hooking his thumbs in the top of his sash. The movement tugged his jacket open further, exposing the brand on his chest.

The men in the trees stiffened. One jumped to the ground and dashed into the thicket; the other moved his hand to his hip, and a gun that I couldn’t see from down here.

“We’ll just go on ahead,” Marco called up to the remaining watchman, still grinning. “No need for fanfare.”

He turned to me, tilted his head in the direction of the thicket. As nonverbal communication went, it was clear enough. I took point, heading into the shadowed passage.

Only a few steps took us out into a decent-sized clearing, surrounded on three sides by a living wall of gorse. On the downhill side the gorse had been cleared somewhat around a small tor that overlooked the valley below. Pirates crowded around the clearing, perched on top of rocks and up in the pine trees like a flock of brightly coloured parakeets. Lanterns glowed in several prominent spots.

A woman sat on top of the tor, gazing evenly down at us. She wore a dark maroon velvet dress with padded shoulders and long tight sleeves that ended in black fingerless gloves. The skirt was full and ruffled, red velvet over a white underskirt. Double lines of lace marched up her bodice to her neck, whereas diadem of gold and jewels glittered in the light from a dozen nearby lamps. She was as beautiful as her dress—auburn hair that cascaded in loose waves around her shoulders, blood red lips. Her eyes might have been grey or blue or green, but whatever the colour, they were incredibly pale. Her hands were folded politely in her lap, her lips smiling, but the muscles in her neck went tight as Marco emerged from the gorse behind me. I decided she was acting more confident than she felt.

That was another thing. All the pirates around us seemed expectant, even nervous. I saw a lot of hands on sword hilts, fingers hooked in the triggers of pistols. But no-one made a move to threaten us. It seemed there was a certain sort of etiquette to be had in meetings like these.

It was only a few steps to the center of the clearing. Marco halted in front of the rock where the woman sat, meeting her pretend-calm gaze with a measured smile. I stood beside and slightly behind him, keeping a suspicious eye on the rest of the crew.

There was a silence that dragged on, and on. The pirates around us shifted uncomfortably, eyeballing Marco and the woman on the rock by turns. I guessed she was their captain.

Finally she sighed, gracefully sliding down onto the turf. "Welcome, I suppose. There's no need to introduce yourself—everyone knows of Marco the Phoenix. Your companion, on the other hand..." Her pale eyes slid across to me, lingering longer than I liked. Her smile deepened.

I kept my arms relaxed at my sides, resisting the urge to cross them in front of my chest. I did not like that smile. There was something decidedly predatory about it.

"This is Loki," Marco said, deliberately leaving the question unanswered. "And yourself? It would be nice if we both knew who we were dealing with."

The woman chuckled, her eyes narrowing. "Where are my manners? I am Amarna, co-captain of the Lightyear Pirates. It's too bad Ilario isn't here, but my dear brother does like to explore. I do hope none of your crew have stumbled across him. You wouldn't like his brand of hospitality."

Marco gave no indication he'd acknowledged the thinly veiled threat; not a single tensed muscle or unguarded look. "Absent hosts, rude guests, no buffet? No, I don't believe we would.”

I had to fight to keep my expression straight.

Amarna sighed, her scarlet lips tugging upwards at the corners. There was no amusement in the expression. "I know why you're here. Let’s not pretend anything else."

“Who’s pretending?” asked Marco. “You know what happens when someone trespasses on a Yonkou’s territory.”

"Mmm, we do know," Amarna said, turning away and pacing in a neat half-circle before she lifted her eyes to Marco's once again. "We had a friend once, who crossed Kaidou. Needless to say, that friend is no longer anywhere on this earth!"

“That wouldn’t be Estes Koen, would it?” Marco said conversationally. “We should all send Kaidou a thank-you note.”

Amarna gave a disgusted snort. “You Yonkou are all the same. Submit or die; it’s not much of a choice! At least Koen realised the hypocrisy.”

“Death is always a choice," Marco replied. "So is, you know, not trespassing on our islands.”

"Enough dancing around the issue." Amarna's mocking smile dropped from her face. "When there's nothing in it for us, what do you expect? The answer is no."

"I see." Marco's eyes narrowed fractionally, a change in expression I only noticed because I’d been watching for it. "I hope you’re ready for the consequences.

”We are," Amarna said, placing a savage emphasis on her words. She whirled on us, drawing a pistol from her bodice, gesturing with it like a concertmaster. “Do you realise how much everyone hates you Yonkou crews, parading around thinking you own the world? Every dog has its day. Sooner or later, along will come a new, powerful crew, and like all the previous holders of the title of Emperor, you will be deposed. Eight years ago, Red-Haired Shanks defeated Cohen Barbary and took his title. Today, the Lightyear Pirates will take yours!"

A roar sprang up from the watching crew. Amarna aimed her pistol at the sky and pulled the trigger. Shots rang out, and swords slid from scabbards, shouts and cheers showing no sign of tailing off.

"She talks the talk alright," Marco observed, drifting closer to me. "A lot of being captain is knowing what to say to your crew, and when to say it. That said, I haven't come across a speechmaker like that in a while. I'm always slightly embarrassed when it happens. Heard a few too many like them in my life."

"What now?" I asked, eyeing the pirates nearest us. Several of them leered back, making obscene gestures. “I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.”

"That would be our exit cue. So that's your final choice?" Marco said to Amarna.

Not lowering herself to answer, she simply spat on the grass at our feet.

Marco shrugged. "Fair enough. Come on, Loki."

He turned and moved back toward the passage through the trees. I followed him no further than a step before the Lightyear Pirates closed the gap in their circle, cutting off our escape.

A click resounded in the sudden quiet. "Hold it," Amarna said, her voice low and dangerous. "Where do you think you're going?"

I looked back. She had leveled her gun at Marco’s head.

"We're going back to our own crew, obviously," Marco replied, without turning around. "I'm not planning to fight now—I don't want my brothers and sisters to think I tried to take all the fun for myself, do I? They can be pretty obnoxious about that sort of thing."

Amarna smiled cruelly. "What makes you think we'll let you go?" She stalked forward, her aim never wavering. "Is Whitebeard himself as cowardly as his crew?"

Marco looked over his shoulder, regarding the woman out of lazily half-lidded eyes. "It's funny how whenever anyone tries to insult us, cowardice is always the first charge. Can't you be more creative?"

Amarna’s lips pressed tightly together. She squeezed the trigger, and the gun went off.

The back of Marco’s head erupted into blue flames. He smirked broadly, the unnatural flame licking down his shoulders. "Loki, get onto the rocks," he ordered.

Then he turned on Amarna, shifted his weight onto his forward foot and lunged at her, shifting mid-leap into the shape of a giant bird.

I ran for the tor as fast as my legs would take me, bullets whizzing by. By some miracle none hit me—the Lightyear Pirates had bigger things to worry about. Marco’s Phoenix form had a wingspan several yards across and every flap of his wings knocked down everyone within that range. I caught a glimpse of Amarna on the ground just as I scrambled up onto the rocks.

I clung to the cracked stone with fingers and toes, crouching and trying my hardest not to draw attention. The air crackled, electrified.

Something tickled the back of my mind. The presence turned sour and grasping, reaching down my spine. My skin prickled. Then it took my heart between ice-cold claws and bore down, driving me to my knees.

There was no time for questions— _what is this_ or _how is it happening_. My heart hammered against my ribcage, breaths coming in gasping sobs as my limbs spasmed with fear like I’d never known. My throat closed up, retching, and the taste of vomit filled my mouth. I curled in on myself, instinct shielding my vital organs from an unseen enemy.

With the tiny scrap of my mind that still functioned, I forced myself to look back at the fight. And something slammed into my left shoulder, knocking me forwards off the tor.

What felt like steel bars clamped around my arm. A moment, and something grasped my other shoulder, sharp talons digging through my jacket and my shirt into my skin.

I fell through empty space for what seemed an eternity before it occurred to my frazzled mind that I was not, in fact, falling.

Cold wind gusted around my body, pulling at my clothes. I realised my eyelids were screwed tightly shut, and forced them to open.

There was nothing but open sky ahead of me. I squinted through the wind, eyes watering. Below, the tussock-covered hillside rushed past, a mere couple of metres below my feet.

Above, glowing blue wings beat rapidly at the air. The crest of a hill reached up as if to pluck us from the sky. The phoenix angled his wings, straining to gain a little more height.

There was the Bluefin, and the bonfire down on the beach, a glowing speck in the dusky landscape. The hillside dropped away in a dramatic bluff, sweeping down into a narrow valley. I felt Marco relax through his talons. He banked slowly left, coming in close to the windswept wheat fields. Water glinted among the shadows at the valley floor, a stream following the curve of the hill down toward the sea.

I twisted my neck, straining to look up at the phoenix. The bluebell flames of his power forced me to avert my eyes, too bright against the fading sky.

I heard his wings creak, and felt him angling himself against the flow of air currents, bleeding speed. We drifted in closer to the flat peak of the hill. Then his claws loosened around my shoulders—my eyes barely had time to snap open in horror before he let go.

I dropped three or four metres through the air, hitting the hillside feet-first. Instinctively I tucked my shoulder in and rolled, head over heels at least three or four times before a gorse bush painfully halted my progress. Untangling my limbs, I dragged myself out from amongst the prickly twigs and flopped down on the hard-packed ground, counting my wounds.

My back was going to be one big bruise tomorrow. The soles of my feet were tender and stinging, making another strong case for a pair of shoes. I'd wrenched my right shoulder rolling, and my hands were covered in dust and gorse scratches. I tried to brush some of the stuff off and in the process opened a scratch wide enough to bleed. The metallic tang of blood pervaded my mouth; I’d badly bitten my lips. My head felt rattled and dizzy. Flying obviously didn't agree with me.

Footsteps crunched through the dry grass toward me. "Say something if you're alive, eh," said Marco.

He sounded about the same as he always did, as if being shot wasn't enough excitement for the day.

"I think I'm afraid of heights," I grunted, pushing myself into a sitting position and tentatively brushing myself off. "Or rather, the ground."

"Really? You seem fine when you're up in the rigging on the ships." Marco crouched down in front of me, within arm's reach, and watched as I took off my jacket and picked the gorse prickles out of it. His claws had ruined both shoulders, ripping right through all three layers of fabric and stretching it out of shape around the collar.

An unfamiliar sadness rose in my gut. I pressed it down, frowning with what I hoped was appropriate displeasure. "You owe me a new jacket."

Turning my attention to my shirt, I noted the same damage on my right shoulder, faint spots of blood staining the fabric darker red. It would have been salvageable if it weren’t for the claw rips.

"And a new shirt, it seems," Marco sighed. "Sorry about that."

"It's all good." I shrugged, and my shoulder twinged viciously. "Just get me something else to wear and we'll call it even."

He chuckled lightly, watching as I tied the arms of my jacket around my waist. "You're pretty calm about that. If I'd ruined anything of… say, Antiope's, she would have torn strips out of me in repayment."

I considered the idea for a moment. "It's just clothes. Easily replaced."

"I see,” Marco said. He unfolded, patting his knees, and stood straight, tucking his thumbs in his sash again. "How are you feeling—well enough to walk?"

I gave my arms an experimental stretch, rotating the joints and wiggling my fingers, then repeated the process with my legs. "I think so." I stood, slowly and gingerly. My body protested, but didn’t put up much of a fight.

“Good.” Marco smiled.

We picked our way down the hillside, beating a path through more scrubby gorse and clumps of pampas grass twice as tall as either of us. It was slow going—I paused frequently to give my burning feet a rest. Twice we startled large fleecy sheep settling down for the night.

We ended up in the streambed in the bottom of the valley, where the last of the evening light barely reached. Though the trail here was free of gorse and other greenery, there were rocks to stumble on and slimy algae in the stream. At the very least, if I fell flat on my ass in the water, I knew who to blame for this excursion.

(And as soothing as the cool water was to my various scrapes and bruises, it wasn't worth a bruised tailbone.)

"What now?”

The question took me by surprise—I suppose some subconscious part of my mind had been working on it while we worked our way through the bush. It didn't faze Marco in the slightest.

"Well, there's only one thing we can do, is there?" he replied, wading carefully through the current to get to a bit of clear bank on the other side. "We can't let their trespassing go unpunished. I sent Neroli and Panther to scuttle their ships before I came up here. They wouldn't have needed it if they had chosen to join us, and now they won't be needing it because they’ll be dead.”

"You sound so sure we'll win," I observed.

He turned back to me, eyebrows arched and raised. “They’re rookies, most of them fresh out of Paradise. We’re a Yonkou‘s crew. I’ll grant you that they seem to have acquired some muscle out of their old master’s crew, but we faced that particular monster years ago and won. There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, but if it’s a contest between the two of us, I’d say we’re the ones who’ve earned the right to gloat.”

A shiver ran down my shoulders, my hands clenching into fists as if to ward off the cold. “Amarna mentioned a name.”

Marco made a wordless grumble. “Estes Koen. He is—he _was_ —a pirate, up until he crossed Kaidou somehow and the Marines mopped up the rest of his crew. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, and please note my heavy use of sarcasm here. Rumour was he was involved in slave trading between here and Sabaody Archipelago. I _hate_ slavetakers.”

His shoulders tensed as he spoke, then relaxed. It was the most emotion I’d ever seen out of him.

I ventured another question. “What is ‘Paradise’?”

A slow smile tugged at Marco's lips. His eyelids drooped lower, the dusk transforming his expression into something predatory.

"'Paradise' is the first half of the Grand Line. We call it that because, compared the New World, that's exactly what it is—a paradise for those who are weak. Pirates come to the Grand Line from all around the world, competing for infamy. Anyone who is anyone will end up here, in the New World, but this is a harsh and inhospitable place, and if you have any doubts we will find them and break them open. Those who aren’t prepared to put their lives on the line will not survive this sea.”

He and I locked gazes for a moment, searching for something in each other’s eyes. Night had fallen around us—a round silver moon hung in the velvet blue sky, bright enough to see by. Moonshadows turned his oddly-angled face into something otherworldly.

Whatever Marco saw in me, it seemed to satisfy him. He turned back to the streambed, continuing down into the beginnings of sand dunes. "Play the New World carefully, Loki. Otherwise, it'll chew you up without a second thought."

I stayed silent for the rest of the walk back to the camp. Having been given a taste of the world I'd gotten myself into, I was going to have to do some serious thinking as to whether it was the sort of world I _wanted_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One advantage of doing this rewrite now, as opposed to several years ago when I first had the urge, is that now I have a definite timeline of events and can work them into the fic without having to make a stab in the dark. Estes Koen, I'm looking at you here.


	10. i will not be frozen

 

**THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER**

_\- i will not be frozen -_

 

Marco saw me to the edge of the camp, then disappeared without a word, as he was prone to doing. I wandered aimlessly between groups of quietly chatting pirates, emerging without ceremony into the the circle of empty space around the merrily crackling bonfire.

Further around the fire, Damini sat on a log with Grim and a few of the other older pirates. There was a map on her lap, and a cautious frown on her face.

She looked up as I approached, glanced back at the map, then did a perfect double-take. "What happened to you?" she squeaked, stowing her pencil and map in a bag by her feet and standing to examine me in more detail. "You look shellshocked! What's with these scrapes?"

"I got into a fight with a gorse bush," I explained, giving a one-shouldered shrug. I wasn't sure why I wanted to keep my adventure with Marco a secret. Perhaps because I didn't have many secrets of my own. "It's all right; they look worse than they are."

Damini giggled and shook her head. “Quite a fight, it seems. I think the gorse won.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the bonfire, holding my arms up to the light. “Wow, some of these splinters are in deep. Go ask one of the doctors for some tweezers.”

A gnarled hand reached around me, turning my hand against the firelight. “There’s no need for that,” said Lilian Maldive, the first division’s head doctor.

Like Marco, Lilian had a tendency of sneaking up on people. Unlike Marco, he didn’t seem to do so on purpose. He nudged my thumb away from my palm and frowned, the lines around his sea-green eyes deepening. "Hang on, I'm sure I've got some peroxide here. If you'll permit me, I'll take care of those scrapes for you."

He let go of my hand and turned to his pockets, digging various bits and pieces out of his pockets, examining labels and chucking crumpled scraps of paper in the bonfire. Then he quietly exclaimed “Aha!” and came up with a clean handkerchief and an unremarkable brown glass bottle.

I drew my hand back, eyes lingering on the paraphernalia in his hands. “Do you think it’s necessary?” I asked.

Lilian shoved the rest of his things back into his pockets and unscrewed the bottle, firelight flickering over his gnarled hands. “Perhaps, perhaps not. I try not to underestimate infection; it can be a real pain in the proverbial.”

He dampened the cloth with whatever was in the bottle, then reached out and gently dabbed at a dirty scrape that stretched across my cheek from my ear to just below my eye. “Hold still; this might hurt a little.”

I obediently submitted to the doctor’s tender mercies. “Does gorse cause infection?”

The peroxide barely stung. Perhaps I'd been telling more of the truth than I realised when I said they looked worse than they were.

“Well, it can,” Lilian said, moving onto my shoulders. He stuck a thumb under the misshapen neck of my shirt and pulled it aside, frowning down at a smear of blood that had soaked through the cotton. “What happened here?”

“I fought a couple of Lightyears. Maybe that.” The other option was Marco and those talons of his, but he didn’t seem to have left an injury.

Lilian swiped the area with peroxide, just in case. “Ah. You didn’t hear the order not to go out on your own? The man with the penchant for gutting people is here on this island.”

I looked at Damini. She shook her head, lips pressed together in some sort of chagrin.

“Marco was around,” I admitted. “I did the fighting, then he scared the leftovers away.”

“Ah,” said Lilian again, and grinned beneath his moustache. “Generally speaking, the order was supposed to apply to him as well, but that man has never thought twice about going off on his own.” Lilian turned the palm of my hand toward the bonfire, then gently tapped the base of my thumb. "Look here, Loki.”

I lifted my hand closer to my face, and a dark splinter became visible embedded in the callused skin on my palm.

“Like this, only smaller—that's what causes infections. The body senses something inside it that should not be there, and tries to remove it." Lilian chuckled. “Unfortunately the last part is easier said than done, and the infection can become trapped within your body. This leads to a festering wound and potentially blood poisoning, which can be fatal.”

"So let's get it out," I said dryly, picking at the splinter with my fingernails. I managed to get a hold of it, but when I tried to pull it out, my fingers slipped, and the splinter remained stubbornly stuck in my skin.

Smiling knowingly, Lilian handed me a pair of tweezers. I set to work chasing around the splinter and the fragments of it that got left behind after I pulled out the rest. Lilian doused the rest of my scrapes with peroxide.

“All done," he said, and capped the peroxide bottle with a flourish. “How were the Lightyear Pirates, do you think? Anything particularly impressive?”

I felt someone’s attention on me, and glanced back over my shoulder. Grim and her companions gazed back with interest.

“Not really,” I said, wracking my brains for something useful to say. “There were two and they went down pretty quickly. One of them looked kinda sick.”

Grim's steady gaze cut away to Lilian. He responded with raised eyebrows. Some communication seemed to pass between them unspoken.

Movement at my side drew my attention. Damini had returned to her log, arranging her robes around her legs and picking up the map. I followed, once it became clear I wasn’t going to be questioned longer.

There was a familiar face in the group by Grim. Antiope looked out along the beach, her grey eyes dark beneath brows drawn tight. “How long until Panther’s team gets back?” she asked in an undertone. “It’s not like him to take so long on such a simple mission.”

"We've got a couple of guys out on the trails, looking out for them," First Division’s helmsman rumbled, his face unreadable. "Scuttling a ship shouldn't take four hours with someone like Panther along for the ride."

Damini glanced at me. Grim none too gently poked her with a ballpoint pen and glared pointedly at the chart. Damini made an apologetic face. Then, as Grim concentrated on her own chart again, she impishly stuck her tongue out at the old navigator.

Antiope caught the exchange and laughed, but her heart clearly wasn’t in it.

Then, over the hubbub of the pirates around the bonfire, I heard a shout. It was answered by another shout, and yet another one, closer and louder than the first. I strained my ears but the words were indistinct beneath the noise of the camp. Conversations died down around us.

A fourth call rang out, louder and closer still. _"Hey! Where's the doc?"_

Lilian stood, his bag of tricks suddenly in his hands. “Antiope, go find some rowers. I may need the infirmary.”

I rose as Antiope did, but where she went shoreward, I turned west, following Lilian through the crowd. Away from the bonfire, the night was deep and dark. Someone came up behind us, handing me a burning torch.

Along the beach toward the little port town, a point of light bobbed through the night. As it grew closer, I picked out limbs and faces; five or six people, navigating by the light of a single torch. They moved oddly, as if they didn't have enough legs between them.

A small, curly-haired woman stalked past,lips parted, frowning intensely. She was Priscilla June, a fourth-divisioner Neroli had informed me was Panther's lover.

"Panther?" she called, loping up to the group as they came closer. "Shit, _Panther!"_

I drifted forward , holding my torch out. The light revealed Panther and Neroli, both being supported—carried, really—by three of the lookouts. All five of them were drenched in blood.

Lilian brushed past me, followed closely by Fourth's doctor, Restram, and his apprentice. As the group manoeuvred themselves closer towards the bonfire, the doctors spread out a thick, clean blanket on the sand. Priscilla and a couple others helped the lookouts lay Panther and Neroli down.

A circle of silent pirates slowly built up around them. I knelt by the edge of the blanket, planting my torch in the sand. Several others did the same, taking care not to block the light so that the doctors could work. At the edge of the gathering crowd I spotted Thatch, his usually jovial expression now a harsh frown. Kestrel next to him, her arms crossed, her lips pressed tight in anger.

Panther was the worst hurt, dripping deep red blood from half a dozen non-trivial wounds. Some weapon like a little garden fork had opened up his chest and throat in three places. He had gunshot wounds in his shoulders and arms, and another long, messy rip through the muscle of his left thigh. Neroli had been placed on her side, facing away from me. Shallow lacerations covered her bare back from the hips up.

"You're like a puzzle someone's tried to take apart," the fourth division’s apprentice doctor said to Panther, wrapping a firm cloth dressing around his throat. "The wounds are mostly very clean. Too clean, in fact. No, don't try to talk," she added as Panther made a faint gurgling noise. "Your throat's a mess. I think whoever did this got your voice box again."

"It is strange."  Lilian bent to examine one of Panther's injuries. He produced a needle and catgut thread from his tool bag, quickly stitching closed a deep wound on Panther’s inner thigh. “I’m getting a definite sense of déjà vu here.”

Restram briefly looked up from Neroli’s wounds. “Is it just me, or are these all old scars?”

Neroli coughed and whimpered quietly. “Ow. Fuck.” She hugged a crumpled blanket while the doctor washed her ravaged back, arms tense and teeth gritted.

Restram laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Stay with us, Nero. What happened?”

“That captain of theirs, I’m guessing.” Neroli’s lips skinned back from her teeth in a weak, pained snarl. “Big guy… maybe as big as Jozu, almost. We ran into him on the way back from the ship. Panther dealt him a good one, but then he must’ve managed to touch him for a split second and suddenly there was blood everywhere. He got me while I was trying to figure out if Panther was dead or what.”

Priscilla knelt by Panther's head, snarling in impotent rage. "I’m going to fucking kill him.”

There was movement in the crowd behind her. Marco appeared, shadows dancing across his face. “That’s a very interesting Devil Fruit power,” he commented, crouching by the edge of the blanket and gazing at Neroli across Panther’s bloody torso. “Is there anything else you remember?”

Neroli groaned quietly. “Don’t know. I think my leg is broken. I snapped one of the bones in my shin when I was twelve and it feels exactly like it did then."

Damini’s voice floated out of the silent crowd. “Neroli, were you ever whipped?”

Neroli craned her head up, hazel eyes searching the crowd for Damini. “Yeah. Why?”

Damini squeezed between Tad and a massive first-divisioner, whispering apologies to both. “There’s a Devil Fruit that reopens old wounds—the Kizu-Kizu no Mi. It’s activated by physical contact.”

“Ah,” said Lilian, gravely. He’d stitched the worst hole in Panther’s neck, but the man’s breathing had shallowed. “That is helpful information. Gyorgy, Mairon, help me get Panther back to the ship. He’s going to need a transfusion.”

The two pirates he’d named stepped forward with faces like stone. Priscilla stepped back, watching the trio wrap Panther in a sheet of something shiny like foil with murder in her eyes. A mutter spread through the watching crowd: a malicious sort of mutter, bent on revenge.

"Big guy, huh?" Thatch said at length. "Think we should go say hi to our guests a bit early?"

"I think that would be a great idea," Marco replied. His eyes flicked toward the looming dark bulk of the hills. I wondered if the Lightyears’ terrifying captain had gone home to that snug little clearing among the gorse, and if Marco had had the same thought.

Priscilla stepped aside as Lilian and his two assistants carried Panther down to the landing boats, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. As soon as the little rowboat slipped into the waves, she turned on her heel and strode, the picture of rage, across to the two watching commanders.

"If we don’t go now, I’m going on my own. I am not letting this son of a bitch get away with what he’s just done."

Those words, and what happened after that, would echo through my head for a long time after that night.

Without hesitating, Thatch stepped forward, clapping a supporting hand onto Priscilla's shoulder. He looked around at the assembled pirates, meeting our eyes one at a time, and after a long pause, he spoke one sentence:

"We'll fight for our territory, but we'll kill for our family."

 

* * *

 

It took us not much longer than fifteen minutes to get both divisions organised and go. The Whitebeard Pirates worked fast when they wanted to.

We assembled down in the valley several hundred yards below the copse that housed the Lightyear Pirates. If I really concentrated, I could hear the noise of what sounded like a hell of a party. I needed no such concentration to pick out the bonfire glow that filtered between the gorse and lit up the lower branches of the pines. Kind of them to mark the place for us, I thought.

There was a silence in the valley—the silence of close to two hundred people listening in anticipation. I hadn’t seen Damini since we left the bonfire on the beach—my companions here were men I had only seen a few times, whose names I hadn’t used enough to remember. Right now, that didn’t matter. We were all Whitebeard Pirates.

“So here’s the plan,” Marco said, pitching his voice so that it carried clearly to everyone present. He perched on top of one of the big boulders that littered the island, his eyes glinting as they swept across the gathered crew. Faint blue flames licked up his arms and spread across his shoulders, silhouetting him against the darkness. “Thatch and Ace have gone up to the copse, and in about five minutes, they’re going to set it on fire. Your job is to catch our rats as they escape. You all brought your weapons?”

There was a rough murmur of assent. No one was in the mood for good-natured bantering.

Marco’s silhouette nodded. “Good. Now, you know the drill—if your opponent surrenders, take their weapons and bring them back to the camp. If they then try to attack you while your guard is down, then kick the shit out of them and don’t bother taking prisoners. Don’t go near the big guy in the Marine jacket, and if you spot the woman with the dress, watch out—I don’t think her Devil Fruit is attack-oriented, but it is very distracting.”

He paused, and added, “Finally, try not to get killed. Just because they’re rookies is no reason to underestimate them.”

“Yeah, we all remember the deal with Ace,” someone close to me muttered, drawing a few quiet sniggers from my neighbours. I filed the confusing comment away in my memory for later examination.

“Just so long as you do,” Marco shrugged, and the flames around his shoulders abruptly went out. “Spread out, everyone. I don’t want any of these assholes getting away.”

Wordlessly, we obeyed.

I headed up toward the ridge, mentally translating my memory of the tracks from this afternoon into the night. I vaguely remembered what the hill looked like from the air—steepening the further up the valley you went, turf dropping away from the bedrock in shallow bluffs. Footsteps followed me up the hill, twigs and grass crackling under heavy boots.

Narrow goat-tracks crisscrossed these hills, meandering between dark clumps of gorse and broom. Wheat crops higher on the hills gleamed in the moonlight. The track I’d followed was narrow at first, shoulder-high scrub dragging at loose clothes, prickles digging into exposed skin as we passed. It widened as it wound around the base of a sheer bluff, and came out at a depression in the hillside, forty or fifty yards along from the Lightyears’ copse.

I paused at the edge of the tussocks, listening to the wind rustling across the fields. Pale shapes clustered around another errant boulder lifted sleepy heads, baa-ing softly. Out of the corners of my eyes I counted my reinforcements: five or six men, one with a musket in his hands and two others wielding swords. Everyone else had pistols.

I shifted my hand to my waist, checking the flintlock tucked into a sash I’d borrowed from Tad. Still there, thankfully.

Right on time, an orange glow sprang to life below the Lightyears’ copse. Ace’s flames leapt merrily into the night. I looked away to preserve my night vision.

“There’s the cue. Move,” said someone, their voice floating through the night air from a few yards downhill on my right. I moved forward up the hillside, dry tussock crackling under my bare feet.

The glow steadily intensified. The sound of revelry coming from the Lightyears’ hideout changed abruptly, notes of confusion in each individual shout morphing to fear as the thorn-bushes burned. The flames blossomed upwards into the upper branches of the pines, sparking as the trees themselves caught alight.

I stepped behind the boulder, now bereft of sheep, focusing on a nearby gorse bush. The Lightyears would be dazzled by the flames when they finally left the safety of their copse. I’d take every advantage I could get.

Dozens of tiny lights flooded out of the tunnel beneath the pines, flickering like fireflies. Torches, lighting the way for the frightened pirates. They split into two groups, heading left and right along the ridgeline. The first group came straight at us. Gunshots cracked the night air, but it was us who had fired first. Several Lightyears screamed. Others bellowed curses, and none of them turned away. In fact, they charged.

The charge pushed us back several yards and more. The torches they held illuminated the battle—swords, cutlasses, knives, and other close-quarter weapons flashing in the firelight. We were outnumbered, and I quickly found myself surrounded. But the first man to make a move on me went down easily, a bullet in his chest at point blank range, and I realised I’d been right—they could barely see me.

I emptied my pistol taking down another couple of Lightyears, and ducked into a stand of broom to reload. Down the hillside, I saw the guy who had made the crack about Ace earlier, backed up against a bluff by three of the enemy. I hurried to finish reloading, stuffed the half-empty bag of bullets into my bra and rejoined the fight.

I took aim at the Lightyears downhill, fired. Two of their crewmates rushed me. I leapt backwards, tripped over a corpse and tumbled a fair way down the hill. My pursuers raced down after me, brandishing swords. I tucked my shoulder in and rolled onto my feet, pointing the pistol uphill and firing. Neither bullet met its mark.

I dodged the first swing of the swords, looking out for higher ground. A body on the hillside not far away gave me a thought. I lunged for the corpse, grabbed it by the arm and belt and heaved it at the swordsmen. One got out of the way, but the other tried to block. Swordsman and corpse went rolling down the hill, blades going everywhere. I’d have winced if I had the time.

The other swordsman looked at me. I raised my gun at him, and he visibly thought better of continuing the attack.

Breathing heavily, I scanned the hillside around me. Suddenly it was all but empty. Over on the ridge, the Lightyears’ corpse burned sedately. Ace had kept the flames well under control. The tussocks uphill hadn’t caught so much as a stray spark.

I cleared my throat and headed downhill, following the noise.

As I approached, three figures emerged from the scrub. I recognised Tad, carrying a rifle with a nasty gash on his arm, and Verna, splattered from waist to forehead with blood. The third was one of the fourth division, no-one I’d met.

“You reinforcements?” I called down to them.

“I suppose,” Tad replied, hauling Verna up to me. “We only got a few of them. I guess you guys stalled the rest up here.”

“Sorta.” I offered Verna an arm to lean on, but she shook her head, bracing her hands on her thighs for a moment and spitting blood out of her mouth.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, flicking her hand at me. “I’m not hurt, just winded a little. Guy hit me right in the kidneys.”

“And then she got him back, right in the nuts,” Tad added with a satisfied smirk. “With that sword of hers.”

The fourth-divisioner chuckled. “Woulda been glorious if I hadn’t been busy having sympathy pains. You whole and healthy, Loki?”

“Yeah.” I started back down the hill, wondering how he knew my name. “Should get back to it, shouldn’t I?”

They followed, Verna carrying her own weight this time. “Notice how many of these guys are dead drunk?” Tad observed, propping his rifle against his shoulder. “This is why we do all our partying on the first day.”

Then the battle found us again, and we split up as someone tried to make Tad eat his words.

Something in the air warned me. I dove forward, rolling onto my shoulder and bouncing upright again as a massive claymore split the air right where I had been standing.

I looked back, and locked eyes with a redheaded giant of a man. He wielded the claymore with ease, corded muscles standing out on his thick arms and bare chest as he experimentally swiped the blade back and forth. He could almost have been testing the weapon’s heft, but the grin on his face told me he was simply showing off.

Here was a man who liked inspiring fear. Bold red and black stripes painted on his arms glistened like blood. His grin intensified as he stared straight at me, never blinking. The claymore glinted wickedly in the firelight. I felt a cold shiver trickle down my spine.

Sweat rolled down my face, my hair sticking to my cheek and forehead. I blinked freely, shaking my hands out, and stood my ground, noting every little shift of weight. My pistol was tucked in my sash—it had one shot left. I should have reloaded while I had the chance.

Then—a slight shift forward. The giant lunged at me, claymore sweeping around. I dove to the right, pain bursting in a line along my forearm. The claymore was a two-handed weapon, massive and quicker than it looked like it had any right to be. I had a weapon with a better range, but again—one shot left. I had to make that one shot count.

I backed away, circling uphill into a wheat field. The swordsman followed, grinning implacably. He struck, and again I leapt aside, but it was closer this time.

I drew him further up the hillside, keeping just outside his reach. He made a third attack. I dodged and came at him from the left, but I’d forgotten something important. He raised his leg, using his sword as a counterbalance, and kicked me.

I flew backwards, knocked off my feet. The air slammed out of my lungs. My body hit the ground and bounced, coming to a halt among the crops.

Wheezing, I struggling to get up. The swordsman’s approaching shadow lent me superhuman endurance. I threw myself aside just as the claymore split the ground where my head had been.

The familiar taste of blood filled my mouth. I’d bitten my tongue when I landed. Spots floated in front of my vision, and I couldn’t take a deep breath no matter how hard I tried. Swaying on my feet, I pulled the gun from my sash. The swordsman wrenched his blade from the ground and turned to face me. I shot him in the chest.

He staggered, but did not fall.

 _Shit_ , I thought.

The swordsman clutched his chest, blood spilling out over his hand. “Bitch,” he groaned. The claymore hung at his side, too big to lift one-handed.

I stepped backwards, loath to underestimate the phenomenal reach of that blade. The man snarled like a wild animal and charged after me. I turned and ran for my life.

The sound of running feet behind me died off quickly. I chanced a glance over my shoulder. He’d come to a staggering halt in the middle of the wheat field, dropping to a crouch with his hands pressed to the wound on his chest.

I drew my empty pistol and pulled the bag of bullets from my bra, reloaded with one eye on the dark figure amongst the wheat heads. A nagging voice in the back of my head told me I should give him a chance to surrender, no matter how close he’d been to killing me a moment ago.

I cleared my throat, attempting to channel the cool indifference Marco had modeled for me that afternoon. “You should surrender.”

Again it was hard to speak. I forced the words out of a sense of obligation, but it felt physically uncomfortable.

The Lightyear Pirate coughed and spat on the ground. “Fuck off,” he slurred.

Fair enough.

I raised the gun, aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger. Recoil thumped back through my arm. The man’s head jerked back, and he slumped down onto the ground. A lucky shot—I’d aimed for center mass instead.

I turned away, into the waning moonlight. Adrenaline faded, and my body presented its complaints. My stomach ached like an elephant had stepped on it. So did my arms, but maybe that elephant had been slightly smaller. My mouth tasted like blood and bile; I spat several times, but the rusty, metallic tang lingered stubbornly.

I brushed off the dirt that clung to my back and sides, shivering as the sea breeze ghosted across my bare forearms. Had it always been this cold? Perhaps I’d forgotten it in all the excitement.I took a deep, deep breath and hunched my shoulders against the wind before heading further along the ridge, toward the town.

Up here the hills were a rolling sea of wheat, edged in tussocks and broom and the occasional twisted pine tree. In the distance I heard the echoing boom of waves against the cliffs on the north side of the island, and behind that far-off shouts and screams. I listened hard for closer noises that might give away an ambush, but I was so keyed up that little noises made by the wind and my own footsteps registered as threats. I realised I was jumping at mice and shadows.

I closed my eyes, took another deep breath, and moved on.

I saw no one for close to an hour. Voices and battle-noise occasionally drifted past on the wind, but after a moment or two the sound would dissipate, shredded by the wind. I kept heading east, figuring that Forsetti would be a likely staging point for both crews. With three hundred-odd pirates running around the island, sooner or later I _had_ to run into someone.

Luck eventually guided me down a steep ravine graven into the side of a stream-cut valley. Halfway down, I noticed a group of torchlights hovering near the valley floor.

I froze, heartbeat thumping in my ears. It wasn’t that far down. Voices carried clearly up to my vantage point, and one I recognised the moment it spoke—Amarna, the Lightyear Pirates’ cocaptain.

“I’d forgotten they’d recruited Firefist. Such a flashy boy.”

I carefully unfroze, hunkering down against the side of the ravine. They didn’t seem to have noticed me.

There was a man in the center of the gathering, incredibly tall and broad in the shoulder, draped in a ragged Marine officer’s coat. A big man, as big as Jozu—Neroli’s description rang in my memory. This was the man that had torn two of my crewmates apart with a single touch.

Amarna stood at her brother’s side, small and willowy. Her dress glowed red in the firelight.

“It’s a setback, but nothing major,” she continued. “I’d love to get my hands on him and see what he thinks of himself when his fire turns on him.”

“If you’re sure.” This voice was low and sonorous, betraying no emotion whatsoever. Amarna laughed.

“Dear brother, don’t go underestimating my power. Trust me.” She paused, and for a moment all I heard was the torches crackling merrily away. “We should concentrate on regrouping. Tanner will be here in the morning. The Yonkou don’t know this island like we do.”

She was cut off by a new speaker. “And what do we do about everyone else? My brother hasn’t come back yet. For all I know he’s lying dead in a field out there.”

Amarna’s voice dropped a few degrees. “He didn’t listen to us, his captains. He deserved whatever happened. You need discipline above all else when you’re dealing with a Yonkou, and if he didn’t have it, then he was never cut out for this crew.”

“Sister is right.” The rumbling voice rang out again. “If he had trusted her and done as she said, then he would be here with us right now, as you are. We can’t ask you to forget your worries, but for now, your priority should be your own life, and the lives of your companions.”

“I don’t…” The other man trailed off, sighing gustily. “I guess, Cap’n.”

I thought back to my encounter with Amarna, remembering the disgust in her eyes as she’d looked at Marco and I. That had been real enough, harsh enough. I wondered where the hate came from, and what sort of prize could be worth leaving behind their own crew.

“Good man.” Amarna smiled near-audibly. “Tell me, you scouts, have you seen any of their commanders? The Phoenix, Thatch, Dark-Wings?”

“None,” someone else replied. “Firefist is the only one, and it seems like he’s watching the fire.”

“Probably making sure it doesn’t spread,” Amarna mused. “These Whitebeard Pirates are surprisingly soft, aren’t they? Nothing like the fearsome tales we heard back in the West Blue, eh?”

“You should know better than to believe gossip like that,” the deepest voice said. “There is no point in destroying one’s own property.”

Amarna _tsk_ ed. “Yes, yes, I know. Still, it’s a childhood belief that dies hard. Ilario, brother, we’ll have to rely on you to deal with the Phoenix. Now that we know how well he heals, you’re the only one of us with a hope of inflicting any damage on him at all.”

The deep-voiced man—Ilario—chuckled. “The more wounds he has healed, the more I can tear him up. Don’t worry, sister, I’ll be your battle commander again. You just have to keep Firefist at bay.”

“So what are we supposed to be doing while you two take on the big guns, eh?” a female voice asked, sounding incredibly bored with the whole thing. “Who do I get to chop up?”

“You saw the man with the pompadour?” Amarna replied, a drawl creeping into her accent. “He’s one of their commanders. No Devil fruit, so I wouldn’t overestimate him! His second is the one with the flashy name—Dark Wings, how arrogant! You should be able to take her down.”

Listening intently, I took note of everything they said. Their egotism grated on my nerves—dividing up my crewmates like servings of a cake? I resettled myself against the rocks, fully prepared to wait hours if need be, until they left.

Instead, I fell asleep. One moment I was awake and eavesdropping; the next my eyelids drooped closed, and in the darkness I slumbered fitfully until a sharp crack echoed through the valley.

My eyes snapped open. I went to stand and my whole body seized up below the waist. Scrunching my eyes shut, I scrubbed a hand over them and slowly stretched my legs out. Judging by the lack of immediate discomfort, I had not been discovered. The noise had sounded less like a gunshot and more like someone snapping a dry branch.

The night had not yet passed. Stars twinkled in a black sky, the shadowy bulk of the hills stark in contrast. The moon had set. Clearly I had been out for a while.

I craned my neck, looking down over the valley. The Lightyear Pirates had disappeared. In their place was a motley group of my own crewmates, led by Thatch. Kestrel, Whetu and Sierra lounged on a pair of large boulders, watching as a pair of younger fourth-divisioners went through the pockets of a dead pirate near the a bluff on the other side of a dry streambed. Kieran and Neroli’s friend Kairos investigated deeper shadows at the head of the valley. The signs of a battle were everywhere, in blood spattered across the churned-up ground and abandoned weapons piled at Thatch’s feet. However, aside from the corpse the fourth-divisioners were ransacking, there were no dead to be seen.

Kestrel looked up, somehow aware of my presence. “Yo, Loki, were you gonna say hi, or are you just planning to stay up there for now?”

I couldn’t suppress a tired twitch. “I zoned out.”

There was a sloping rock face between my hiding place and the valley floor, steep enough to be difficult to climb but not impossible. I clambered down the face of the bluff, slowly, carefully. My foot slipped on a loose rock about halfway down. I slid the rest of the way on my butt.

“That’s one way to make an entrance,” Thatch commented off-handedly, and laughed. His white suit stood out eerily against the night. “Where’ve you been?”

“Sleeping,” I said. My breath hissed through my teeth as I gingerly picked myself up off the ground. My butt was going to have a hell of a bruise tomorrow.

“Where’d you curl up? The Lightyears were all over this place.” Kairos peered closer at me “And you’re covered in blood.”

I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder, up at the ravine where I’d been sleeping. “Up there, between a couple of rocks. The two captains were down here.” I looked around the clearing, at the blood pooling on the dirt. “You guys didn’t meet them?”

Kestrel shook her head. “No, only a couple of fighters. One surrendered, the other died. It looks like you ran into some trouble too.”

I looked at my hands. It was hard to see in the dark, but I could feel dried blood smeared across my skin. A streak on my right arm caught my attention: it ran almost perfectly aligned with my forearm, spidery drips leading away as if they’d been driven by wind. How it had gotten there, I didn’t know.

I looked back up at Kestrel. “Might have. I dealt with it.”

“I’m sure,” Sierra said dryly. “You said you saw the Lightyear captains?”

“Yeah.” My mind was still half-asleep. I drummed my fingers against my face, hoping my brain would get the message. “They said something about waiting for a pickup in the morning, some guy named Tanner.”

Thatch snickered. “That’d be the other rat. I was wondering where the rest of them had gotten to.”

Something whooshed down out of the night sky, crackling flame and heavy wingbeats. Marco’s Phoenix form landed heavily on the edge of the bluff I’d come down, his wings spanning nearly the width of the canyon. He transformed, flames melting into his skin, which flickered for a moment with pulses of electric blue and settled back into his usual solid tan.

“There’s movement toward Forsetti,” he reported, sliding with practiced ease down into the streambed. “I’m seeing thirty, forty pirates on the tor behind the port. We’ve had six defections and one unconscious casualty whose partner assures me she won’t object. There are apparently nine Devil Fruit users among the senior officers, one of whom is a Logia—brimstone, according to said defectors—and another is an Ancient Zoan, looks like a crocodile pig hybrid. The rest are Paramecia.”

“Sulfur, huh?” Thatch scratched his goatee. “Get Thera out here with armament haki and seastone. Ace won’t work—sulfur melts when it burns.”

Marco nodded. “I told our experienced fighters to get their asses out to Forsetti. Kellan ran into the female captain, took a substantial loss but will live to tell the tale. None of the defectors know exactly what her power is; according to Kellan, she took a normal battle high and turned it into complete and utter terror.”

Memories clicked into place inside my head. “She thinks she can turn Ace’s power against him.”

Marco turned his head my way. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s right. Is that where you’ve been, eavesdropping?”

Thatch chuckled, resting his hands on his hips. “Apparently so. What else did you hear, Loki?”

I shrugged, and the muscles in my back twinged violently in protest. Awkwardly massaging the pain away, I wracked my brain for useful information. “They were... sharing out who they wanted to fight. The other captain, the one that hurt Neroli and Panther, he was planning on fighting Marco.” I frowned up at the constellations high in the sky. “He said something like, the more you’ve healed, the more he can hurt you.”

There was a short silence, broken by Marco’s quiet laugh. “Well, do you know one thing? I’d love to see him try.”

“You have no damn self-preservation instinct,” Kestrel told him. She bent, picking up the broadsword that lay by her feet, and passed it to Sierra. “Some people need taught a lesson in humility.”

“Or just in the myriad ways you can really fuck up a good plan,” Thatch put in. “What d’ya say, Marco? Wanna help me throw a wrench in the works?”

Sierra rose to her feet, stretching languidly. “Now that we know their game plan, can we get going? I wanna cut something—or someone.”

She swished her claymore though the air, turning to lope off down the valley. The others wandered after her, following at a more leisurely pace.

“Take your time, no rush,” Marco glanced back over his shoulder at me. In the dark, I could just see him smile. “You coming, Loki? We could do with reinforcements.”


	11. drown out my head and my heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been labouring over this chapter for nine goddamn months. Getting into BnHA probably did not help, lmao.

 

**THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER**

_\- drown out my head and my heart -_

 

We bypassed the camp, heading east toward Forsetti along a mile’s worth of beach before the path took us up onto the low ridge at the end of the bay. Wind roared up the channel between the two islands, laced with ice. 

Out over the ocean, bad weather was brewing. I caught a glimpse of the storm as the sky began to lighten ahead of dawn. The entire eastern horizon was a mass of clouds, misty grey clumps at the base rising up into a group of enormous white thunderheads miles above the ocean’s surface. Down in the channel, the Bluefin rode heavily at anchor. Waves piled up and crashed onto the beach with a chthonic rumble.

Marco had gone ahead, scouting from the air. He met us on the headland, accompanied by several familiar faces, of which Damini was one. She passed me a scuffed and dirty jacket with a knowing smile. 

She’d acquired a warm jacket of her own since last night. Hers had woollen edging around the neck. Mine did not. 

I gave her a look as I shrugged on the jacket, eyebrows raised. The sleeves had been torn in half just below the elbows. 

“Better than nothing,” Damini said. She tucked her chin down into the wool-lined neck of her jacket and wrapped her scarf several times around her head. “I did look, but clean clothing is in somewhat short supply on this island.”

A fresh gust howled in off the sea, raising gooseflesh on my bare forearms. “Better than nothing,” I agreed.

After a moment speaking softly amongst themselves, the commanders dispersed among our group. Marco went ahead, Kestrel brought up the rear. Thatch positioned himself at the head of the bare earth track that led down the other side of the headland into into Forsetti and its harbour, facing us and cupping his hands around his mouth.

“Listen up, assholes - here’s the plan! We’re splitting up into three groups, one led by me, one by Kess, and one by Ace. Marco’s gonna be our messenger and watchman in the sky. We’re not sure where the Lightyears are at the moment, so we’re going to flush ‘em out. Whoever goes with Kess, you’re staying in Forsetti. Whoever’s with Ace, you’ll investigate the east arm of the harbour. Whoever’s with me, we’re going up into the hills.” He gestured to the pastured slopes behind the township with his whole arm. “Thera’s got flare guns here; shoot one off if you need to get Marco’s attention. Or just make a racket; we’ll figure it out. If you’ve got Observation Haki, keep it peeled. Finally, keep a real good eye out for the captains. We know what the woman does now and it’s not fun.”

“What does she do?” asked a fourth-divisioner who’d joined us from Damini’s group, waving their hand in the air. “Is it touch-activated like the other one, or what?”

Thatch grinned. “Emotional fuckery is what she does, and it’s close to disabling. Don’t let her get closer than a couple dozen metres - that seems to be her distance limit. If anyone can get a clear shot on her, you have our blessing to take that shot. If all else fails, we’ll throw Marco at her.”

“Oi,” said Marco, from a grassy knoll further up the trail. “Thatch, you gotta start doing your own dirty work.”

A wave of quiet titters went through the gathered pirates. Thatch flapped his hands at us. “Go on, figure out who’s going where for yourselves, I’m not your nanny.”

I looked around for Ace, finding him by a tall flax on the side of the trail. The wind picked up another notch; tussocks growing on the hillside began to thrash about, wheat paddocks further afield rippling like satin. Damini joined us, followed by the fourth-divisioner who had asked after Amarna’s power. Tad approached soon after, handing me a fresh bag of bullets and a flare gun. I counted the charges in the cylinder, then tucked the gun in my sash. Sierra Lee arrived, bringing our number up to six.

Ace sighed, clapping his hand on Damini’s shoulder. “All right, let’s get going. Like Thatch said, we’re going down to the harbour. ‘Mini, stay close to me; Grim will murder me if let you get killed.”

He led the way down off the headland, the rest of us following in a ragtag group.

Forsetti nestled on a small plain at the southern end of the natural harbour, a collection of buildings ranging from two-storeyed townhouses built of wood and brick to a couple of derelict tin shacks that slumped at the very edge of the town. The path from the ridge led straight into its main street.

The town was eerily quiet. Corrugated iron sheets banged in the wind, and sheets flapped on clotheslines, but Tad pointed out that there was no birdsong, no children playing in backyards. It was as though the inhabitants had vanished.

They hadn’t—not quite. I felt a prickling at my neck and turned, looking up at a second-storey window. A child’s face disappeared from behind the glass.

“Six people in that house, four of them children,” murmured Sierra as she passed. “No intent yet.”

Ace headed down one of the side streets leading toward the harbour, investigating recessed doorways and little alleys between shops. I followed, keeping a wary eye on the rooftops. Forsetti’s houses were mostly wooden affairs with steep-angled tin roofs, shut in behind high fences, but there were ways up for a dedicated climber. The street led out into a wide, grassy common above the head of a rickety wooden pier. This too was empty of all life. 

Sierra stiffened, turning back toward the town. “Ace, six people coming down behind us. One’s a Devil Fruit user, I think.”

Ace followed her gaze. “I guess we’d better see what they’re up to,” he said, and cracked his knuckles. Little flames licked about his shoulders. “Tad and Loki, watch our backs.”

He and Sierra strode quickly across the lawn, disappearing into a shady alley. I took my cues from Tad and followed, skirting the walls of shops and gardens. 

A column of fire erupted into the sky, blocking off the end of the alley. Sierra yelled a battle cry. A gunshot cracked the still air, and another. Then there was a thump that reverberated through my rib cage and a quiet whooshing sound. I poked my head around the stone wall of a dilapidated shop and saw a firestorm at the end of the alley. The flames drew back, coalescing momentarily into Ace’s muscled frame before he lashed out with his power again.

Tad signalled me from further back, pointing to his eyes and then shruggings. I judiciously translated this as  _ What do you see? _ Miming an explosion and shrugging, I moved further down the alley on tiptoes. Scorched cobblestones gave off heat, sharp against my feet. 

Sierra popped out of the smoke. “Four heading east, two streets over!” I followed her around a corner and caught her wiping her zweihander on a corpse laying in the road. “Wait - five. Someone’s got a Zoan fruit and it is uuuuuuugly.”

We gave chase, loping up the road at an easy pace. Sierra paused below a thick brick wall, giving Tad a step up onto the top. He followed us around a corner and into another alley, jumping onto someone’s roof and across onto an upper level balcony. “I see them. What the fuck is that thing?”

Sierra laughed shortly. “Kellan called it a hell pig! Not gonna lie, it’s accurate. You two, give me some cover fire. I’m gonna get me some bacon.”

Tad hopped down a level, camouflaging himself behind the only tree I’d seen in Forsetti so far. Crouching, he stuck his hand down to me. “Up here, Loki.” I took his hand, hooked my other arm over the walltop and pulled myself up, weathered concrete and brick scraping my bare arms. Tad took out his rifle and aimed for the group gathered in the next street. “See them, Loki?”

“Yeah.” I took out my little gun. “On your signal, Sierra?”

The two experienced pirates gave me identical wicked grins. “Just do it,” said Sierra, and strode out into the street.

Tad shot first. The thunderous crack of his rifle slammed about my head, leaving my ears ringing. The Lightyear Pirates scattered, bar one who dropped dead on the cobblestones, the fatal wound obscured by low light and distance. I tracked another who fled in the wrong direction, firing twice until the man disappeared behind a wall. Tad fired again. A man screamed, and the enormous grey shape of the Zoan lifted up on two legs, giving a stentorian bellow. Sierra swung her enormous sword and leapt forward to meet them.

Tad tapped my shoulder and leapt down to the street. “Come on.” 

I followed just as Ace dashed around the corner, flames licking at his heels. “Sierra?” he asked.

Tad jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. The Zoan roared, and a shockwave pulsed under my bare feet as something crashed through a stone wall into someone’s yard. “Nice,” said Ace. “Mika and Damini are back where I was, you two go look after them.”

The wall two houses down exploded in a hail of shattered concrete. Sierra came sailing through the gap. She tucked and rolled onto her feet, hefting her sword in one hand. A shallow gash on her shoulder dripped red blood down her back. 

Tad saluted Ace and ran. I followed in a hurry, reading the writing on the walls.

The two younger pirates had taken shelter beside a stone buttress on the eastern end of the street, below what looked like a granary. They looked up at the sound of the Zoan’s enraged bellow, eyes wide. I gave them a quick look over. Neither were hurt.

“We should get out of here,” Tad said, hanging his rifle back over his shoulder. “Ace’ll be back soon—Sierra’s not good at sharing.”

None of us argued. “Which way?” Damini asked. “I heard an explosion on the other side of town just before.”

Tad frowned past her. “Forget that. Weapons ready—we’re about to have company.”

Movement flickered at the end of the street, a head poking around the corner. I stepped out from behind Damini and shot. The head pulled back and a divot of brick fell out of the wall. 

Tad clicked the safety off his gun. “Damini, behind me. Loki, Mika, get closer, take them by surprise.”

I advanced on the corner, following the line of the wall. Some little noise warned me, and I pulled the trigger just as a group of pirates spilled out into the street. Someone cried out in pain. I shot again, heard Mika shoot somewhere behind me, and then the report of Tad’s rifle echoed around the town. A young man went down with half an arm blown off. Something hard hit the muscle beneath my shoulder - there was no time to look. My fingers went numb. I made a fist with my other arm and stepped forward into the attack, lashing out. 

An older woman blocked my punch, swinging a steel pipe at my shins. I leapt aside, turning on my heel and smashing my foot into her exposed side. Someone else shot at me and missed. My fingers tingled, numbness fading—I realised I’d managed to hold onto my gun, and retaliated in kind. 

A tiny blonde girl raced towards me with a thin knife in each hand. The older woman swung her pipe at me again. I caught the pipe, bearing down and wrestling it out of her hands, but the little girl got to me before I could turn it on her. She buried her knives in me, one in the belly and one in the big muscles of my thigh. White-hot agony erupted around them.

I lashed out blindly with the pipe. It connected with something solid, the impact traveling up unto my hands. Around me whirled the grey and blue and early-morning gold colours of the world, strangely quiet. I threw myself backward and the blade in my leg scraped against bone. Bile rose up in my throat. I groped for the blade in my gut, found nothing, turned my attention toward the one in my leg, and yanked it out.

Almost immediately my vision cleared. Sound came back in a rush. I dropped the knife, leveled my gun, and realised that the battle was over. The girl who had stabbed me lay unmoving on the cobbled street, blood pooling around her head. The older woman knelt by the wall with another captive, Tad standing over them with his rifle cocked and ready. Five Lightyear pirates lay dead or dying in the street, and Mika lay with them, staring glassy-eyed up at the swirling clouds.

The pipe dropped from my hands. The noise of it clattering against the stones brought me back to reality. I doubled over, wheezing as pain so intense it greyed out my vision rippled through my internal organs. It pulsed once, twice, three times, and suddenly faded. I found myself kneeling, the rough-hewn cobbles cold on my bare skin. Blood soaked my t-shirt and my shorts, slicking my hands.

Hands grabbed my shoulder, pushing my hair out of my face. “Loki, Loki, are you okay?” asked Damini, her voice high and panicked. “You need help, you’re covered in blood—what happened?”

The pain inexplicably continued to fade. I found the hole in my shorts where the knife had entered, pushing my finger through. It encountered a puffy-edged wound that was far smaller than I had imagined. Panting through the pain that remained, I lifted up my t-shirt, inspecting my stomach. And though my skin was stained red with my own blood, here there was no wound at all.

The pain gave one last twisting throb and disappeared.

I stared at Damini, my thoughts working rapidly. All the aches and pains I’d ever encountered in the past flashed through my mind. None of them had lasted very long, in hindsight.

Damini looked me in the eyes, her expression lost. “Loki?”

I licked my lips, and gave her a hesitant response. “I’m okay, I think.”

Her eyes darted to the bloodstains on my clothes. “Are you sure?”

Rather than explain, I lifted up my t-shirt, showing her the unmarked skin. She frowned, but did not comment.

I took the steel pipe from the cobbles, using it to lever myself upright. The pain had left me drained and shaky, the contents of my stomach lurching at the change in position. 

“Not dead, Loki?” asked Tad, glancing away from his prisoners and back again. “Good. Send a flare up.”

I tucked my little pistol back in my sash, swapping it out for the flare gun. Firing into the sky, I counted three seconds before the flare lit up in red. The wind caught the cartridge, carrying it east toward the ocean. Not long afterward, Marco dropped like a thunderbolt out of the sky.

Wings melting back into his body, he glanced around, taking in the carnage in the alley. “Ace has been delayed—he should be with you shortly. Oh dear, Mika.”

“We got rushed,” said Tad, his voice low and murderous. “Thought we were going to lose Loki for a moment too.”

“I’m fine,” I said, wiping my hands on my shorts. Marco raised his eyebrows at the bloody smears they left behind.

“It certainly doesn’t look that way, but I’ll take your word for it. Bind your wounds if you can—even if they’re shallow, you’ll lose blood moving around.”

I shook my head. “There are no wounds.” 

Marco’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I see.”

Tad laughed. “Damn, you’re lucky. Marco, what should I do with these piles of shit here?”

Marco went to Mika’s corpse, gazed down at him for a moment before he bent and gently closed the corpse’s eyes. “There’s a shed we have keys to on the edge of town. I’ll give you an escort.” Standing, he stretched his arms above his head and flames sprouted along them, spreading outward into the broad shape of the phoenix’s wings. “Damini, go with Tad. Loki, find Ace and let him know what’s happening.”

“All right.” I stepped back as Marco launched, looking back along the street toward the town. The crashing and screaming of Sierra’s battle had faded. Closer by, smoke rose into the sky and was snatched away by the wind. That would be Ace.

The source of the smoke proved to be a burning thatch on top of a stone-walled shed. I found Ace further along the same road, standing with Kestrel and a pair of fourth-divisioners as they watched Sierra’s battle with the enemy Zoan draw to an end.

The combatants slammed together again with a thud that shook the street. Both were covered in blood and moving slowly, exhausted, but it was clear who was about to win. Sierra limped a little on one foot, bleeding sluggishly from a dozen cuts and scrapes. The Zoan staggered, tail nearly severed and one arm hanging nerveless at their side. As they separated, circling each other, I caught sight of a deep wound under the hanging arm. The pirate wore long steel gauntlets; they had caught and parried Sierra’s zweihander earlier. Sierra had clearly targeted the one part of those enormous arms that could not be covered—the armpits.

Sierra struck, leaping left and slashing at her opponent’s wounded side. The Zoan twisted to catch her blade. She let go of the sword with one hand, punching upward under the Zoan’s ribcage with a hand that had gone cast-iron black. 

The Zoan fell back, squealing.

Sierra took her sword in a two-handed grip, gathered herself, and lunged forward. The blade struck the pirate in their belly and sank deep. The squealing cut off in a choking sob.

Something struck a discordant twang against my nerves. I looked away as Sierra finished off the pirate. When I looked back, the monstrous body had shrunk down into a normal man, half-naked and pale-skinned beneath the red that covered him.

Sierra sat gingerly, lowering her sword to the cobbles and bracing her hands on the stones behind her. She breathed hard and deep, once, twice, and more. “I’ll give the bastards this—that took some doing.” 

Kestrel took a glass bottle from a knapsack slung over her shoulder, passing it down to Sierra. “That’s two out of nine Devil Fruits down.”

“Three,” Ace corrected, as I came closer. He turned to me, offering a devil-may-care grin. “Any news, Loki?” 

“Mika’s dead,” I said. The grin shriveled up. “We took prisoners. Tad’s taking them to a shed Marco mentioned.”

“Poor kid,” said the other fourth-divisioner, stepping out from behind Kestrel. I recognised Reed by his brilliant green eyes. “You don’t look too hot yourself, Loki.”

“I’m fine,” I said, for the third time. “Maybe a bit tired.”

Kestrel snorted a laugh. “Good one. Got any other news for us?”

“I do,” Reed interrupted, pointing toward the sky over the port. A red flare rose into the sky, drifting closer in the wind. “Think we ought to be there?”  

The old pirate grinned. “Go on, kids—I shouldn’t have to give you permission.”

 

* * *

 

We crossed the town running, thirty seconds to the wide green space above the waterfront, arriving to find a standoff. Amarna of the Lightyear Pirates stood alone on the sea wall, auburn hair wind-tossed, her silhouette stark against the approaching storm. Sun broke through the cloud for a moment, lighting her in dawn. 

Our crewmates surrounded her from a distance, hanging back out of a healthy respect for her Devil Fruit. She had six guns pointed at her, but no-one had fired. The three dark shapes slumped at her feet answered my question before I could ask it.

Ace halted suddenly just ahead of me, his breath hissing through his teeth. “Kali and Thera are down. Who’s that with them? I can’t see.”

Kestrel jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Ace, get back. She thinks her powers will be particularly effective on you and so far we haven’t found a reason to disbelieve her.”

He ground his teeth, pacing backward a few steps. “I am not going to fucking back away from a fight. Whatever she’s planning, I won’t let her.”

Up on the sea wall, Amarna’s elegant head turned toward us.

I reached out to Ace, touching a warning hand to his shoulder. “I think we need to go.” 

He turned to glare at me. “Loki, I just said I’m not going.”

“You enormous child.” Kestrel’s hand shot out, whacking the back of his head. “Get the fuck out of here before it’s too late. We’ll cover you.”

Laughter rose above the roar of the waves. “Oh, that is beautiful!” Amarna clapped her hands and gazed down at us, her smile visible from across the waterfront lawn. “Do you always allow such disobedience from your subordinates, Dark Wings? Or is it simply Whitebeard’s policy to allow his children to throw petty little tantrums?”

My hands curled into fists unprompted. Ace visibly strained against his own self-control. 

Kestrel put a warning hand on his other shoulder. “She’s baiting us - probably to amplify the effect of her power. Ace, take Loki and find Thatch.”

Amarna cackled like a seabird. “You had better hurry, or my brother will find him first.”

Ace’s black eyes sparked. He rounded on the Lightyear captain, fists clenched and fire dancing around his forearms. “You—shut up.”

(“Fuck,” said Sierra, somewhere in the background.)

Amarna’s smile grew wider. She raised her voice, stepping delicately over the bodies sprawled on the rocks at her feet. “I see those flames, Firefist. Better not come any closer, or they’ll be mine. You wouldn’t want to burn your own crewmates, would you?

“I will  _ never _ , never let my nakama be burned,” spat Ace, “and my flames will never be yours.” He held his hands apart, his flames jumping between them like a lance. “Get the fuck away from them.”

His opponent sighed, and smiled the wide, sincere smile of someone for whom everything is going exactly as planned. “Oh, dear boy, you don’t have a choice in the matter.” The next moment, she vanished.

“What?” said Ace, half a second before he erupted into a blazing pillar of light and heat.

My heart thumped a warning beat, echoing inside my head. Anger and fear intensified until they became a wave that rushed through my body and mind like a tsunami, boiling away senses, searing away thought and drowning out circumstance. I barely felt the crack of stone against bone as I dropped to my knees in the street. The torrent wore me down, stripping  _ Loki _ away from me until I forgot everything but the choking emotion that held me underwater. It was worse than being stabbed. It was everything at the expense of anything. 

And still it was not the worst thing I had ever felt. Darkness yawned in the back of my head, threatening to draw me in, but somehow I found the strength to struggle against the current. Terror and rage buoyed me up, an instinct to fight over an undercurrent of subtle happiness that gave me a seafloor on which to set my feet. I lived a kaleidoscope of little memories and feelings simply too small and too numerous to tell apart from each other, and gradually, the sparks behind my eyes spun together, swirling into a great mass of white. I don’t know how long I stared into this maelstrom, but it was too long. A second would have been too long.

Then I woke up.

I opened my eyes, and it was like opening my eyes for the first time back in Carolinge. My cheek pressed against the cold cobblestones, dust clinging to my face where tears tracked across my cheeks and gummed my lashes shut. One arm was pinned beneath me, the other flung out as though I’d tried to regain my balance even as I fell. I felt various aches and pains, but only vaguely, and they became less and less obvious as the seconds passed.

A scream of rage rang through the atmosphere, torn away by the wind before I could identify the voice. Staying limp in case the enemy had come out on top, I scanned the sliver of street in my field of vision for anyone, anything I could recognize.

Ace’s boots strode into view, pausing somewhere near my head before he squatted down, leaning into my field of vision and frowning at me. “You look like shit, Loki. Are you alive, or just faking it?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but a massive sneeze hijacked my respiratory system. And another one, and another, and another…

Ace waited patiently as I suppressed the sneezing fit, then by effortful increments, sat up. He was grinning, but it was a shaky, defiant sort of a grin.  

“What the hell happened?” A gust of salt wind swept down the street, plastering my hair across my face. I swept it away, scowling.

“I fucked up,” Ace admitted. Crossing his arms, he looked away, at something out of my field of vision. “I hate running away, but I should have, and I’m lucky none of you got hurt because of me.” 

I turned my head and found Damini, standing in a group with Sierra, Reed, and the six who’d bailed Amarna up against the sea wall. Kali was with them, a makeshift bandage around her forehead. Thera and the other one Amarna had taken hostage sat a few paces away against a worn brick wall. A dead pirate—not one of ours, as far as I could tell—lay on the edge of the lawn, blood soaking into the dirt from a wound on the back of their head.

“So that was a Devil Fruit?” I shook my head, trying to clear the last of the tsunami from my mind. Everything seemed fuzzy, and far away. It was the same sort of distance I’d felt those first few days in Carolinge, as though everything around me was miles away and the effects would never reach me. I looked around the street, seeing heads turned my way in concern and curiosity. Something important and nameless hammered on my thoughts.

“Yeah. Two, technically—one some sort of illusion-projector, which belonged to the corpse over there, and the captain.” Ace unfolded his arms, pointing to Damini. “She thinks it’s something called the Shinen-Shinen no Mi. And—you felt what it did.”

“I did, but I’m not sure I could describe it.”

He shot me a quick grin. “True. It seems like it was worse for you than the rest of us.”

“Ugh.” I laced my fingers together, stretching my arms out above my head. “What happened to me? It felt like... like I was drowning.”

Damini appeared in my field of vision. She glanced at Ace, then gave me a thorough look, no doubt checking for injuries. “Good, you’re awake. How do you feel, Loki? Physically, I mean?”

“Physically? Fine.” I brought my arms down, rolling my shoulders until an ache in my neck eased. “It’s the rest that concerns me. Nobody else passed out, did they?”

Ace shook his head. “It was a horrible feeling, but no.”

I grit my teeth, leaning in over my lap and focusing on the cobbles beneath us. “Then why did I?”

Out the corner of my eye, Ace shrugged. “Fuck if I know. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. Marco’s got her.”

“Amarna?” Inhaling sharply, I looked up. “Where are they?”

Another, fainter scream rang out. Ace opened his mouth, and paused, his eyes lifted to the stormy sky. “Probably wherever that is.”

Damini filled me in on the rest of the story. “From what I’ve read in the encyclopedia, it is a well-established facet of the Shinen-Shinen no Mi that it can make Devil Fruit users lose control over their power. Ace certainly did; Tad and I saw the fire from three streets away. So what I would really like to know is why it did not work on Marco. He intercepted her, and kept her busy long enough for us to get away. Kestrel and Tad have gone to see if they can get a clear shot, but she’s almost as fast and slippery as he is.”

“Yeah, she’s not a bad fighter,” Ace grudgingly admitted. “Guess there’s a reason she’s a captain, beyond the Devil Fruit.

He bounced to his feet with energy that seemed to come from nowhere, adjusting the loop of his hat around his neck. “Come on, we should go.”

Damini scrambled after him, but I stayed where I was for a moment, pushing myself to my feet. The sea wall stood strong on the other side of the lawn, shielding the town from the sea.

“Loki?” someone called after me. I realised I’d already begun to move.

The land on which Forsetti stood sloped shallowly downward across the lawn. Past the sea wall, it gave into terraces that marched straight down to the pebbled beach. The wind swept straight off the ocean and slammed into the town, raising huge white-crested waves which heaved up and crashed upon the shore with a sound like thunder. As the water retreated, dragging the top layer of gravel back into the sea, it raised a deafening clatter. 

Halfway down the beach, two figures did battle.

Amarna no longer wore her long dress—or if she did, she’d torn off the skirt some time ago. She kicked and lunged with bewildering speed, somehow maintaining her balance on the treacherous gravel. There was a wicked-looking knife in her left hand, and a thin-bladed sabre in her right.

“ _ How?!!” _ she shrieked, the words nearly drowned out by the crashing of the surf in the background. “ _ How can you resist it?!” _

If Marco replied, he did so in a voice far too quiet to hear. With a series of loose, sweeping attacks, he battered Amarna further away from the town, towards the waves rolling in off the sea. He wasn’t using his Devil Fruit power at all. I wondered if her power prevented him from using it, or if he had decided he simply did not need it.

I found myself transfixed by the fight. Marco’s movements were fluid and changing, adapting to the gravel underfoot and the wind sweeping in off the ocean. He fought low, so that she couldn’t take his center of gravity out from under him, and matched his momentum to hers, making it hard for her to land more than a glancing blow on him.

Neither combatant had the upper hand. Amarna was too frustrated to fight well, and despite Marco’s skill there was a slow, almost leaden quality to his responses. Amarna’s power  _ was _ affecting him, I realised, to at least some extent. But he hid it well, and she kept backing away from him. Range was the key—if she went any closer to him, she would sacrifice the advantage of her speed, and give Marco the opportunity to use his greater strength.

They were on the foreshore now, the stones clattering under their feet wet with spume and seawater. Amarna suddenly seemed to realise that she had the sea at her back. She desperately feinted right, ducking around Marco and making a break for the island. He spun and chased her, landing a heavy kick that knocked her to the ground.

She screamed, dredging up her remaining power in some urgent survival instinct. Marco took a swaying step back, clutching his head. Almost a hundred metres away, I felt the deep ocean currents in my head return.

Amarna scrambled to her feet, leaving her sabre behind. She lunged at Marco, her knife glinting in the stormy daylight. He sidestepped, but not quickly enough, and the blade dug deep into his shoulder. She laughed fiercely, twisting the blade. Marco stumbled forward, closer, and like lightning buried his knee in her gut.

Amarna stumbled, fell backward. She lay stunned on the pebbles for a still moment before the remains of a wave swirled around her, running past her and petering out further up the beach. Abruptly, I felt the buzz of her power die.

Marco felt it too. Bright cerulean flames flickered around his arms, the wound on his shoulder knitting back together. As Amarna struggled to stand up, he shifted to full phoenix form, leaping forward. His talons closed around her shoulder, and the impact threw her back, into the path of another wave. Marco banked sharply, avoiding the water by a feather, but the wave caught Amarna full-on. The force of the water knocked her down, and the next wave sucked her under. The captain of the Lightyear Pirates vanished into the ocean.

The phoenix flapped its wings once, and, driven by the wind, crash-landed hard on the upper beach. Blue flames melted back into Marco, who stood unsteadily for a moment before his legs folded underneath him.

Movement further up the beach jolted me into moving. Two featureless blobs resolved quickly into Kestrel and Tad. I relaxed, slowing to an uncomfortable jog (and made a mental note to wear shoes next time I expected to be on a gravel beach). 

Marco made no move to get up as we approached, simply crossing his legs beneath him, resting his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. He frowned pensively down into the waves—looking for signs of Amarna, perhaps.

Kestrel kicked a spray of gravel at him. “Can always rely on you to do stuff no-one can predict, huh? That’s one down.”

“And still one to go, eh.” Marco looked sidelong at her. “Thatch predicted it. He’s going to be insufferable.”

“Thatch doesn’t count.” Kestrel laughed. Tad halted behind her, the long barrel of his rifle resting over his shoulder. “I sent the kids to back him up. Tad and I are off to join them. I’ll leave Loki with you for company’s sake.”

Marco laughed, short and soft. “All right. Send up a flare if you need me—this old man needs a rest.”

Words tumbled from my lips without prompting. “You don’t look that old.”

He smiled at me, his blue eyes glimmering. “Yes, I get that a lot. I’ve been around a long time, though—Kess can vouch for me.”

“Unfortunately I can; I’m no spring chicken myself.” Kestrel took her knapsack from her shoulder and dug inside it, retrieving a bottle like the one she had given to Sierra earlier. “Here’s water for the old man—share it with the lady or I’ll start to doubt your manners. Let’s go, Tad.” She passed the bottle to Marco, and started up off the beach. Tad gave me a wink, then followed.

I lowered myself to the beach, sitting cross-legged beside Marco. “Are you okay?” He looked perfectly healthy, but I was quickly learning that with Devil Fruits, you never knew.

“I’m fine.” He laced his fingers together and stretched his arms outward, the movement accompanied by a series of sharp clicks. “I’ll be shaky for a while with the leftover energy, but there’s no harm done.”

His reply did not ease my worry. Perhaps it wasn’t Marco that I was worried about, but something else. 

He uncorked the bottle Kestrel had given him, drinking deeply. As he finished, resting the hand that held the cork on his knee, I reached out and wrapped my fingers around his forearm, dully surprised at my own audacity. His wrist was thin and birdlike, bones and tendons standing out beneath his skin, his pulse beating rapidly. There was a shake in his muscles, hardly visible, but clear to my touch. Exhaustion.

“How did you… deal with whatever that was, with her power? How did you hold it back?”

Marco stared at me for a long moment, at my hand on his wrist, and laughed. “Whoever said anything about holding it back?”

I felt myself frown. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Can I have my hand back now?” He gave his wrist a meaningful look.

I let go, finding I had to concentrate to make my fingers go slack. An odd pang of reluctance tugged at my thoughts. “There was so much of it in my head. If you didn’t block it out somehow, how did you keep enough control over yourself that you could still fight? You were that close to her you should’ve been out of your mind.”

“Oh, there’s a trick to it,” Marco said, and took another long gulp of the water. As I spoke, a smile had spread slowly across his lips—part amused, part satisfied. It seemed I was seeing that smile a lot lately. “Sooner or later there’s a trick for everything, eh. It’s just up to you to find them.”

My frown deepened. “You could just tell me, you know.”

“I could,” Marco agreed. “But you know, I like people to think for themselves.”

I tried a new argument. “Most people have considerably more experience at thinking than I do.”

“It’s in how you’re thinking about what you’re thinking.” Marco shifted, straightening his legs and leaning back on his palms. Gravel crunched beneath him. “You’re always thinking like that, I’d wager. Trying to get used to being what you are, trying to find that sense of familiarity with your thoughts that is innate for most people. We are what we are, so we usually don’t bother thinking about it. You, on the other hand, don’t have the first clue what you are, so you’re always second-guessing yourself, trying to figure out why you’re doing whatever you’re doing. Sometimes I can see it when you hesitate before you do or say things.”

I slowly shook my head. Sometimes, it seemed like Marco understood me better than I did.

He offered me the water bottle. “For your sake, then, I’ll explain. ‘Shinen’ means passion, and ‘passion’, as far as I’ve always understood it, is strength of emotion. The thing about passion is that it is energetic by nature. And if you can find a way to use that energy, rather than letting it swamp you, you can then use it to complete your goal rather than fighting against it. The broader principle is that if you face a force you are unable to overcome by attacking head-on, work _ with _ the force, rather than against it. From a more poetic viewpoint, passion is not necessarily a bad thing.”

I took the bottle, abandoning my attempts to understand him, and settled for just watching the wind set his hair and clothes aflutter. “But you still couldn’t heal yourself until—” A memory of Amarna struggling against the waves flashed briefly in front of my eyes. “—until the sea had her.”

“I couldn’t concentrate enough to shift forms,” he said, shrugging loosely. “I’ve heard of the Shinen-Shinen no Mi before, so I didn’t even try. If I had lost control over my phoenix form, there was no way I would have been able to keep fighting.”

A particularly vicious gust of wind howled up the beach. I hunched my shoulders, hugging my arms around my chest. The half-sleeved jacket Damini had given me was little help in this weather, and my feet were still bare. I definitely needed more winter clothes.

“Well, one guy left,” I mumbled, shuffling downwind of Marco in an effort to shield myself from the wind. “How are we gonna deal with him?”

He shrugged, uncharacteristically carelessly. “For now, we’ll leave that to Ace.”

“Ace?”

“Yes, Ace.” He gave me an amused glance, brows raised and eyes narrowed and smiling. “He is good for more than just stealing food, as you should know by now.”

“Yes, but—” My feet felt like solid blocks of ice. I curled my toes up, trying to lift them off the pebbles. It didn’t make much of a difference. “Why Ace?”

“Why do you suppose?”

Marco’s smile loosened, his eyes opening a little wider. Morning light glinted against his irises, the same steely grey as the clouds that rushed above the island. This was a test. 

I closed my eyes, took a long swip from the water bottle, and thought. 

Facts first: Both Ace and Ilario were rookies in the New World, from what I had heard from crewmates. Ilario was a captain, but then again, Ace was a Whitebeard Pirate. I hadn’t seen Ilario fight, but he’d been able to take out Neroli and Panther with very little trouble. On the other hand, I  _ had _ seen Ace fight, and his sheer explosive power seemed without match.

Speaking of powers… Ilario’s Devil Fruit was a Paramecia. Ace’s Mera-Mera no Mi was a Logia. Ilario’s reopened old wounds, while Ace’s turned him into living fire. Ilario’s power was activated through physical contact. Flames were by nature intangible.

My eyes snapped open. “Ace is fire. Ilario may not be able to touch him.”

Marco’s smile deepened, telling me I had guessed right. “However, that hinges on the weather. What is fire’s great weakness?”

“Water.” I was catching on faster now. “If it rains, that’ll put Ace at a disadvantage.”

“And that’s what I’m afraid of, eh.” Marco looked up at the clouds, pensive. The wind tossed his hair like tussocks in a storm. “Rain doesn’t quite stop Ace from using his powers, but he’s definitely less effective. Half the potential destructive power of the Mera-Mera no Mi relies on the things around the wielder catching fire and in turn, things around those things start to burn, so the fire spreads on its own. Ace can control that fire, but often he does not—you saw what happened when we fought the Mountain Goats. Subconsciously, I think he relies on it. In the rain, his fire cannot spread. His opponents can get closer to him as a result, and if they’re fast enough, they can overpower him.”

“Then there’s the slight possibility that we’re wrong, and Ilario can simply wave his hand through Ace and open all those old wounds again. Since they’re old wounds rather than new ones, would that mean they would affect Ace as much as they did when they first happened?” I’d seen Ace shrug off wounds that would have killed him if he hadn’t been in his Logia state at the time, but I suspected that in those cases it was less like he was healing from the wound and more that he’d simply avoided being hurt in the first place.

“There’s really no way of knowing for sure, but I’d guess so.” Marco frowned, staring down into the rising waves. “Although, there is another advantage Ace has that, say, Thatch wouldn’t have. Ace is only eighteen—Thatch is forty-seven. That’s twenty-nine years of life experience that Ace doesn’t have—twenty-nine years’ worth of chances to get horribly injured. Even if we take into account the usual childhood injuries, and triple that because it’s Ace we’re talking about after all, it’s considerably less than the past injury potential of someone who has been a pirate for almost thirty-five years, and has quite a talent for getting himself hurt in embarrassing ways.”

Down on the beach, a massive wave rolled onto the shore, curling up into a frothy white crest before breaking onto the gravel with a thunderous roar. I watched it come surging up the beach, slowing just short of the pebbled dune where we sat, and slumping back down the slope amid a clatter of gravel.

“Oi, Loki.”

I twitched, suddenly aware of Marco’s gaze on me. He briefly made eye contact with me, then nodded toward the bloody patches on my clothes.

“You said you weren’t injured, and given the way you’ve been moving I believe it, but those aren’t backsplatter. What happened?”

I opened my mouth to reply, and realised that I had no idea what to say. The memories were fuzzy already, blocked out by the raging white torrent Amarna’s power had sent flooding through my mind.

“It’s a long story, and I’m not really sure what happened either,” I admitted. It was the truth—for a given value of the truth. “I have my suspicions, but I… don’t know, and I’m not sure how I’d go about figuring out the truth.”

Marco stared at me for a long moment; long enough that I began to wonder if he knew something I didn’t. His expression gave away no clues as to his thoughts. “And, I suppose, the middle of a campaign to defeat an enemy crew is no time to be experimenting,” he said, very gently, and gave me a smile that was equally unreadable. “Come to me once we leave Kiiroen. I may be able to help you find your answers.”

I thought of the phoenix, its wings blazing like the summer sky on Carolinge, and the way Marco had shrugged off a bullet to the head with the help of those flames. I had healed in blood and pain, but I had healed. 

“I will,” I said, and passed the last of the water back to him. “Thank you.”

 

 


	12. interlude: seven weeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INTERLUDE: Marco thinks back on his growing relationship with Loki.

**THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER**

-  _seven weeks_ -

 

A brisk dawn wind blew through the camp, driving loose sand across the ground and piling it up against the sleeping bodies sprawled around the ashes of the campfire. Marco sighed, fastidiously brushing the grit from the map he held in his lap.

The customary new-island party was done. Today was business time.

It wasn’t going to be particularly pleasant business—but then, piracy seldom was.

This early, few of the landing party had woken. Only three remained in the camp, trying to resurrect the bonfire so they could cook breakfast. Marco had sent the others out to scout for the trespassing crew a few minutes ago. and he wasn't expecting to see them returning for a good while yet.

Kiiroen wasn't an island most of the Whitebeard Pirates were familiar with. Its only export, grain, wasn't something most pirates bothered with—Marco half suspected the only reason Whitebeard had claimed it for his territory was out of principle. None of the divisions had visited in the ten years since.

So, compared to the Lightyear Pirates, who had been basing themselves in Kiiroen for almost two months now, the First and Fourth Divisions were at a disadvantage even before the battle had started.

Superior numbers and experience leveled the playing field somewhat, but Marco hated the thought of ignoring a possible weakness.

The map currently spread out across his lap was a recent acquisition, freshly borrowed from Grim's collection. It depicted Kiiroen in all its underwhelming featurelessness. Marco ignored the homesteads and the town, focusing instead on the shape of the island itself, its ridges and valleys and streams and cliffs. Later on he'd head out and survey it from the air, as only he could.

Something crackled, and the breakfast team let out a trio of quiet whoops as the wood they'd piled onto the bonfire caught alight. A wisp of smoke drifted across the campsite towards Marco. He paused for a moment, weighed the options, and put his map aside. Planning could wait until he had a full stomach.

On his way over to the bonfire, a flicker of orange against the sand caught Marco's eye. Further investigation revealed Ace's hat, making a wind-driven bid for freedom.

Would it do no harm to let it go? The damn thing was offensively bright.

On the other hand, Ace would be absolutely distraught. He loved the thing, for reasons no sane person could possibly comprehend.

As the wind pushed the hat up against a log of driftwood and kept it pressed there for a moment, Marco caught up, snatching hold of the bull's skull medallion before it could blow away again. Hat thusly secured, he looked back at his sleeping nakama.

Now, how to find Ace… The hat was the first thing he usually noticed—without it, Ace's black curls blended in with the crowd of mostly dark-haired pirates.

"Looks like I'll have to do this the hard way," Marco muttered under his breath. He stepped forward into the mess of spreadeagled limbs and collapsed bodies, holding back a chuckle at the state some of the crew had gotten themselves into. He did not often drink himself, and his crewmates provided a perfect demonstration of why. Someone had to stay sober, for the sake of safety. Marco had often thought it may as well be him.

He found Thatch first, the pristine white of the other commander's pants standing out like a sore thumb even in the predawn dull. Not far from Thatch was Sindri, likewise divested of his usual clothes, though unlike Thatch he had failed to retain even his pants. Loki was there too, flat on her back in the sand and breathing serenely. Her slanted eyes shuttled back and forth in an animated dream beneath closed lids.

"Aha." Behind Loki was Ace, lying on his side with his back to Marco, a scrap of bronze cloth peeking out from behind his shoulder. One arm draped possessively across something huddled into his chest.

Marco quietly padded around to investigate, a slow smile spreading across his face. Ace had a tendency to keep girls at arm's length, and was as subtly insistent about it as they were about throwing themselves at his feet. Yet here was Grim's rookie apprentice, cuddling up to him like he was an overlarge teddybear.

Smiling, Marco bent down, and set Ace's hat near the pair, turning it upside down and filling the brim with sand to keep it pinned down. Then he stood, intending to head back to the bonfire, but as he turned away, the sand rustled behind him.

He turned at the exact moment Loki sat up, tiredly brushing the sand from her clothes. She looked left, right, chuckled at the predicament of the man at her feet, and turned to Ace and Damini last.

Marco waited for a couple of moments before he broke the silence. "Cute, aren't they?"

Loki's shoulders twitched ever so slightly. She hid her surprise well, half-turning to stare at him over her shoulder out of one blue eye. "You have a habit of sneaking up on people," she tartly informed him.

Marco bit back a chuckle, in no doubt as to what she thought of that particular habit. "I do. I find it's one use of an imperceptible presence that never gets old." He let his teasing smile linger, matching her gaze.

Loki raised her eyebrows and huffed good-naturedly. "With an expression like that on your face, it's easy to imagine why." She broke eye-contact, looking around at the sleeping pirates from under lowered lashes. Marco watched her expression change with the tiniest of movements, from tired to comfortable, and smiled.

"Since you're awake, you may as well come help me see what’s for breakfast." He gestured toward the bonfire, now merrily crackling away, and the three cooks chatting amiably as they toasted sausages over the coals. Bottles half-buried in the sand caught the light, and he added, "If you've got a hangover, a bite to eat might help."

Loki shook her head, her eyes focusing on the bonfire. "I feel fine. I'm just hungry."

Which was not entirely unexpected—Marco had kept an eye on her last night, and she seemed to have been nursing the same tankard of beer for a good couple of hours. Laughing, he’d mentioned it to Grim: _“It’s always good to see a pirate with alcohol sense!”_

Grim had given him a Look. He still wasn’t quite sure how to interpret it.

Loki stood, brushing sand from her back and grimacing. Marco waited until she adjusted her thin jacket around her shoulders and began picking her way toward him to move off toward the bonfire.

“Sausages?” she asked, as the wind drove a waft of cooking meat and char past them.

Marco nodded. “We eat a lot of them, away from the ship. They’re cheap, easy to preserve and easier to cook, all features which make them attractive to pirates.” He took a sausage-on-a-stick from one of the cooks, dipping it in a bowl of tomato sauce, and passed it on to Loki. “These, smoked meats, pickles, biscuits and preserved fruit are your usual pirate cuisine. Pops lets us spend a bit more on food than most crews, though.”  

“Oh,” said Loki, and the light in her eyes brightened. “That explains why everyone seems to love mealtimes so much.”

Marco chuckled, acquiring a sausage for himself. “That, and also the opportunity for socializing. The food is probably the major factor, I’ll admit.”

The cook closest to Loki leaned in and put a hand to his mouth in a mock whisper. “Don’t tell anyone, though, or they’ll all be clamoring to join the crew.”

She smiled faintly, breath hissing between her lips in a gentle laugh as though she wasn’t quite sure whether it had been a joke or not. “All right, I won’t.”

When Loki had first joined the Whitebeard Pirates, Marco had taken one look at her composed expression, the old scars and wiry muscles covering every inch of her lean frame, and alarm bells had gone off in his head. It wasn't unheard of for the Marines to try planting moles in powerful pirate crews; it wouldn't even have been the first time they'd tried with Pops’ crew. Loki’s story was much more outlandish than the Marines usually tried—complete amnesia, who would believe that?—but all the signs were there. Marco had voiced his concerns, and many of the senior crewmembers had agreed. Loki would be a risk, whether she was a Marine plant or not.

Whitebeard himself had seen the sense in the argument—but, for whatever reason, he'd seen fit to ignore it. Marco trusted his captain’s judgement, but there was a reason Whitebeard relied on him as the crew’s unofficial second in command, and it wasn’t blind loyalty.

So, for the next few weeks, Marco had made sure to keep Loki in his sight as much as possible. From dusk to dawn, bow to stern—everywhere she went, he made excuses to follow.

Quickly it became clear to him that either she was the best actor he'd ever seen, or she was telling the truth about her amnesia. No Marine informant was ever as earnest or blunt as she was—or as clueless.

Marco's suspicion gave way to confusion, then curiosity. The woman was a walking riddle.

He started to take notice of her habits and mannerisms, the way her eyes narrowed when she noticed something she didn't understand, how her hand sometimes drifted up to her neck and squeezed as though it wanted to choke the life out of her. She wrote down everything she could, and often on the days she wasn't rostered to either sailing shift, Marco would spot her sitting somewhere out of the way, her notebook open in her lap as her pencil traced designs across the pages. She was happy to share her notes with anyone who asked; and in return she asked her own questions, industriously writing down the answers.

And blue eyes were common enough, but Marco very rarely saw anyone with eyes like Loki's. Wide, yes, and strongly slanting upward toward the corners, a deep blue colour that glimmered like the sea. The Turiak Triangle, Grim had suggested, and the human cultures around Elbaph. A lot of those men and women went to sea in the harsh winter months, earning a living through fishing, trading, and less legal professions. Those eyes might prove to be a useful clue to her history, he thought idly—although, here in the New World, it was anyone’s guess as to whether she’d survive long enough to put it to use.

He found he didn’t like that thought much.

The silence drifted along between them as the bonfire crackled. Hungover pirates woke, and crawled into the dunes to empty their abused stomachs. Loki shifted, her eyes still glazed over, deep in thought.

Abruptly, she broke the silence with the kind of blissful ignorance that had driven her actions for as long as Marco had known her. "Hey, do you know where I could get a map? Of this island, if possible?"

Marco frowned, waiting for his thoughts to catch up with the abrupt change of topic. "What do you want a map for?"

She shrugged, her blue eyes cutting aside and down, almost bashful. "Nothing, really. I just like knowing where I am in regards to everything else."

"That's understandable," Marco said, smiling. When she looked up at him, her eyes wide in surprise, he added, "That's what your notebook is for, right? Figuring out your place in the world."

Loki narrowed her eyes, cocking her head to the side and turning slightly away from him. She was well past the age where such a gesture could be considered cute, but she did it often enough that Marco guessed it had long since turned into habit. Her fingers tapped absently against her thighs as she considered his words.

“Yes,” she said eventually, “that is what it’s for. A map of my thoughts and memories, in case I get lost again.”

And there was not much Marco could say to that, was there?

“I have one you can borrow after breakfast,” he offered, in lieu of sympathy he wasn’t quite sure how to express. “It’s Grim’s, so you’ll have to be careful with it.”

Her expression relaxed. She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his for a moment before darting away again. “Thank you. I’ll look after it.”  

Marco smiled. Of that, he had no doubt.

 


End file.
